Dinner at Last
by Lyaka
Summary: Sometimes Ishikawa Nobuo dreams, but it isn't important. (Nephrite and Makoto.)
1. Prologue

A/N: I'm so sorry this took so long. (Nephrite was lost but _good._) Thank you to everyone who had patience - I hope this is an ample reward.

You can also follow this story over on AO3. Google "ao3 Lyaka" and you'll find me, as well as my works in other fandoms never posted on this site.

* * *

Rain was drumming against the windows of his bedroom. Mamoru thought, sleepily, that the weather sensors must have finally let a storm front come through. Outside his door came the soft murmur of voices, the sound of a teapot whistling, the cheerful crackle of a fire. He should get up soon. With his father the King gone to negotiate with the rebels in the east, Endymion was left holding the throne in the heart of Terra.

_("The rebels are massing in the eastern lands.")_

_("Very well. Prepare my guard. I will deal with this personally.")_

_("Father, you shouldn't. They are not willing to negotiate!")_

_("I do not believe they are as aggressive as that. They have disagreements, grievances, certainly. But these are things that can be discussed.")_

He frowned in his sleep. No, that wasn't right. The rebels weren't interested in negotiation.

_(Endymion wanted to scream. "Father, that is not just a gathering of discontents! They are building an army!")_

_(King Eltosian held up a commanding hand and fixed his son with a stern look. "Not every gathering of force is an army. The rebels wish to be perceived as strong, so that their demands will carry more weight.")_

_("My king," High General Adain intervened, her voice carrying clearly through the charged air between father and son. "My reports _do_ indicate that the rebels are organizing themselves along military lines.")_

_(Prime Minister Altenna stepped forward, drawing the King's attention. "They have gathered a leadership that includes many members of the lesser nobility who are discontented with your majesty's pursuit of diplomacy with the Silver Alliance. These nobles have great symbolic significance. They present an alternative to your majesty's rule. The people may be inclined to view this favorably, if they successfully pursue a military campaign.")_

_("I cannot and _will_ not believe they would plunge Earth into war over something so minor!")_

_("It's not minor to them," Endymion tried to explain. "These are younger sons or minor nobles whose lands and holdings do not support them fully. They maintain their lifestyle through trade and marriage. Entry into the Silver Alliance threatens them! Powerful nobles will seek to connect themselves with the nobility of the other planets instead of allowing their younger daughters to marry lesser lords. System-wide trade agreements will destroy their livelihood. They _will _fight to preserve their way of life.")_

_(King Eltosian had waited patiently, letting Endymion speak, but the distance in his eyes spoke louder than words that his mind was made up. He stood up; automatically the other occupants of the room rose to their feet. His gaze swept over them.)_

_("I am going to show them the error of their ways. We must put an end to all of this foolishness. They simply need to have the matter explained to them.")_

Mamoru tossed fitfully. Going to negotiate with the rebels was a mistake, he _knew_ it was. Eltosian hadn't understood how threatened some of his people were by a treaty with the Silver Alliance. His Father was a good King, but he'd never lived among the people or learned much about their ways of life. Not that Endymion had, either. But unlike his Father's guard, who were all of the highest nobility, the Prince's shitennou were younger sons and lesser nobles from the farther-flung provinces. They still heard from their troubled peers, and Endymion heard from them.

He knew this was no mere negotiating tactic. The rebels weren't posturing, they were in deadly earnest. But Eltosian been so determined to go no one could stop him, not even Adain, his bodyguard since birth and closest companion.

_("My son, come here.")_

_(Endymion stepped forward to stand beside his father's mount. The courtyard was full of stamping horses and laden wagons, all prepared for the journey to the east.)_

_(Eltosian placed his hand upon Endymion's head. "You have always done everything I have asked of you," he said in a quiet voice. "We have not always agreed, but your heart is good and your character is strong. I am well pleased with you.")_

_(The King raised his voice to carry to all present. "While I am gone, you will rule these lands in my stead. The Prime Minister and the High General will place themselves at your command. You will carry the responsibility and the rights of rulership.")_

_("Father!")_

_("Serve our people well," he added in a quieter voice. "When I return, we will discuss a division of power. I am getting old, and it's time the people began to know your face.")_

_(Eltosian smiled down at his son. Looking back up, he gave the order to proceed. Slowly, the caravan wound its way out of the city.)_

Usagi watched her husband's disturbed sleep with a frown of her own. Mamoru had not been able to sleep soundly for the last week. At first she had been willing to write it off as restlessness, or eagerness, or an excess of emotion from three reunions in as many weeks. But the nights were getting worse, not better. She wasn't sure yet how this related to Nephrite's continued absence, but she was getting less and less able to convince herself that it was a coincidence.

_(Endymion sipped from his glass and smiled automatically at the latest lord to beseech his aid. It seemed that the farmers of the western lands were encountering an unusual number of bandits, who were surprisingly well-armed and organized. It was wreaking havoc with the food supply for the entire western quadrant.) _

_(The man before him was a personal emissary directly from Byron, Prince of the Western Lands. He hadn't yet led up to it yet, but Endymion expected to be asked for a detachment of the Terran Army to assist the Western Guards in protecting their heartland. He had already decided to grant the request. It was what his father would have done.) _

_("Your Majesty!" The sight and sound of the door swinging open shattered the calm atmosphere like a knife. Nephrite was on his feet and between the prince and danger before the echoes of the cry had finished returning from the stone walls.)_

_(Endymion recognized the man in the doorway from councils with his father. Darew was one of the best spies working for the royal throne. His skills lay in illusion; he could walk through the palace freely and show a different face to whomever he needed to deceive. But this overt act of intrusion was not in character for the soft-footed man who preferred to fade unobtrusively into the crowd.)_

_("My father is not yet returned," Endymion said calmly, attempting to restore Darew to his senses. The prince gestured to Nephrite, who stepped aside enough for him to converse directly with the spy, though his guardian remained close and preserved an attitude of alertness.)_

_(Darew darted a glance at the visiting nobleman from the west.)_

_(Endymion turned to the emissary smoothly. "Lord Malven, I regret that an urgent matter appears to have arisen. Perhaps we could resume this later? After you have dined with me tonight, at my table?")_

_(Malven could not be pleased at the interruption, but as Endymion had hoped, the sign of favor a royal dinner conferred smoothed the sting. "Of course. Your Highness." He stood and bowed, then withdrew gracefully.)_

_("Your Majesty," Darew repeated urgently the moment the door closed behind Malven. He took two steps towards Endymion, slowly, out of deference to the looming shitennou of the west, but deliberately. The little spy knelt, took Endymion's hands in his, and formally kissed the back of each.)_

_(A sudden chill settled itself around Endymion's heart.)_

_("You are doubtless unaware I was traveling with your father as a silent member of his train," Darew said hoarsely. "At High General Adain's orders, I was to witness the negotiations from a distance and return to report if things did not go as well as the king planned.")_

_(Endymion controlled his breathing and ordered his voice to calmness. "And how are the negotiations going?")_

_(Something hot and wet splashed on the back of his hand. "There were no negotiations. The rebels have declared war on you and your line. They say you are blood traitors and accursed.")_

_(To Endymion's left, Nephrite made a sound of utter disbelief, eyes going wide.)_

_("And my father?")_

_(Darew's fingers tightened convulsively on Endymion's. "The king is dead. Long live the king.")_

_(Endymion felt the world falling away beneath his feet.)_

Mamoru jerked awake, trembling. He put a hand to his face and discovered it was wet with tears.

"Mamo-chan?" Usagi rolled over and reached out for him. "Are you all right?"

He buried his face in her neck. Beneath her fingers, his skin was clammy and cold. "I don't know, Usako. I don't know."

* * *

"Heading out early, Ishikawa?"

The young man so addressed turned. "Yes, a little. There are delays on the subway tonight, I hear."

Mizuki, the department head, blinked in surprise. "I hadn't heard that." He glanced out the window as if he could see backed-up trains and a flood of commuters from the forty-fifth floor. "That's unfortunate. Maybe you should stay in the city tonight?"

Ishikawa Nobuo's smile was a little embarrassed, but his voice was firm. "My mother would be disappointed. She only gets to see me once a month, after all."

"Well, family is important. You go on ahead, then. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Thanks, Mizuki-san." The elevator bank pinged. With a wave, the young man left.

The delays on the subway didn't turn out to be too bad. He was only fifteen minutes behind his normal time when he jogged through the station and caught his usual regional train out to the suburbs. It would make for a boring ride, though, since he'd had to skip a visit to the newsstand. At least he'd been able to pick up a bento to eat during the ride. And tonight they hadn't yet been sold out of the tofu. His mother would laugh at Nobuo's caution, reminding Nobuo that he had always been skinny. But since becoming an adult, there had been many fewer opportunities for physical activity, and it never hurt to be cautious. Several of his older colleagues had had to go on diets, and were always warning the younger ones to take care what they ate.

A new gym had opened up along one of the streets he walked to reach the regional train. Once again, Nobuo thought of stopping in one evening. Maybe signing up for a class. He'd enjoyed martial arts as a youth. Since the place had opened three months ago, he had been meaning to drop in on his way out of town, but one thing or another always seemed to conspire against him. Once it had been a late meeting at work; another time Yamada-san's retirement party had left him full enough as it was. Last time the line at the newsstand had been longer than usual and he'd had to run to make his train. Tonight it was the subway delay.

Oh well. Another time. In the meanwhile, finished with his meal, Nobuo leaned back against his chair and watched the scenery go by.

* * *

_(The boy fidgeted irritably. They had been standing in this crowd for a long time now, a time he youthfully described to himself as "forever". It was late summer, time for the crops to be brought in. Every other day of every other year of his life, when the sun stood high and the nights were slowly turning to chill, he had been out in the fields with everyone he had ever known, gathering the harvest.)_

_("Why are we here?")_

_(His mother smoothed down his hair and resettled the clothing the boy had disturbed with his restlessness. "We are here to meet the prince, dear one.")_

_(This answer was not new; it was the same he had been given before. He had asked the question last night, when he was told to bathe out of turn and scrubbed within an inch of his life, despite his protests of not being a baby anymore. He had asked it again this morning after he had been woken early and they had climbed aboard the automotion carriages bound for Atalantia. Once again had he asked after they had reached their station in the crowd of families, packed into the hallway of a larger building than he had ever dreamed was possible to build. At first the marble halls and flashing electronics had impressed him, and he had daydreamed the afternoon away. Now, as he sensed night falling outside, his wonder had turned to loneliness. His sisters would be preparing the evening meal now, laughing with each other over the day's minor events. His father would be settling in with his evening's occupation, while over the one-way came music or stories to fill the air.)_

_(He looked around, hoping to at least spot a familiar face. His mother had told him that all of the children from his school would be here today, if they were older than seven and younger than fifteen. But so far he had seen no one he recognized.)_

_(The time ticked by. He yawned. The hallway was less full now, but there were still more people present than lived in his home village.)_

_(Then he had a new thought. Emboldened, he tugged at his mother's sleeve again.)_

_("I don't _want_ to meet the prince!")_

_(His mother's laugh was soft but sincere. "But my dear, what if the prince wants to meet you?")_

_(He fell silent. This was an even larger, newer thought. He pondered it over carefully.)_

_(His mother rose to her feet and tugged him up with her. "Come now, dear one, it's our turn.")_

_(She led him into an enormous room. He thought it was too big for him and his mother and the few other people in it. They were all clustered in the center of the large room, as if in agreement with him. There were a lot of adults, as always, but he was interested to see another boy who looked to be his own age. He was standing very straight and tall, looking right at him, with black hair and very blue eyes.)_

_("Are you the prince?" he asked.)_

_(The raven-haired boy nodded.)_

_(He let go of his mother's hand and walked up to the other boy. Several adults in the room drew in sharp breaths or looked disapproving, but he paid them no mind. He had been thinking very hard, and now he wanted to ask another question.)_

_("Do you want to meet me?")_

_(The raven-haired boy blinked in surprise, and twitched, as if he were fighting the reflex to look at one of the adults nearby. The two boys were staring at each other from only a few feet apart now, and he waited to hear the answer.)_

_(The prince's face blossomed into an unexpected smile. "Yes!" he said.)_


	2. Chapter 1

Makoto dropped the stack of clean towels in their bin with a _whoof _of relief. "I can bench-press two hundred pounds," she muttered to herself, pushing a rebellious curl back behind her left ear. "I can run a marathon in three and a half hours. I can fight evil in _high heels_. Why does toting linens around wipe me out so much?"

She straightened and turned, to see another woman in workout gear standing on the other side of the counter. "Eto… Kino-san?" the woman asked tentatively. She glanced around, but she and Makoto were the only people in the gym's small entryway. Everyone else in the building was on the other side of the glass, addressing various forms of exercise equipment, or out of sight in the locker rooms. Returning her gaze to Makoto, she asked, "Were you… talking to me?"

Makoto shook her head, assuming her polite, customer-facing expression. "Merely reviewing my day's to-do list," she lied. "Did you have a good workout today…" _My age, prefers bike and elliptical, brown hair… mousy hair… _"Nezumi-san?"

Nezumi smiled and nodded. "I did indeed, Kino-san. I do value your gym so much. Such a convenient location, and excellent facilities. The neighborhood is lucky to have you!"

"Oh, no, the pleasure is mine," Makoto demurred politely. "To own my own business has always been my dream. Your support humbles me."

"I will _definitely _continue to support you," Nezumi said, leaning forward conspiratorially, "_especially _when your gym provides such, ah, pleasant views." She tipped her head sideways, and Makoto turned to look. Over by the free weights, Yamazaki Kanji – Kunzite to his reincarnated friends – was working an impressively loaded barbell, while Jade Devine, aka Jadeite, spotted him. Both were wearing workout gear that left little to the imagination.

"Ahh," Makoto said, turning back towards Nezumi. "Yes, indeed, I am favored by many clients." Three of whom were unfairly hot, and dating her best friends. And, as if that wasn't unfair enough, she was _supposed_to have one of her own. She'd been so hopeful for so long… but six months after Rei's father's latest matchmaking scheme had brought the Shitennou back into their lives, Nephrite had yet to grace them with their presence. All of their efforts to locate him had come up blank.

"That one in particular…" Nezumi indicated Kanji with a glance, being sure Makoto's gaze followed hers. "So striking! Grey hair so young, for most it would be a tragedy. But on him, so distinctive!"

Makoto concealed a smile. Kunzite's hair had been silver for millennia, genetics be damned. Fortunately, Minako agreed with Nezumi on the topic of its attractiveness. And speaking of Minako… "Yes, very distinctive indeed! His girlfriend, who also attends this gym, has confessed to me that it was the first thing that drew her to him."

Of course, that had been at a ball in Terra City, back at the dawn of diplomacy between the Golden Throne and the Silver Alliance. Venus had found Earthers to be appallingly tall and complained half the night about it. Jupiter, who was _literally _Junoesque, had been teasing her about it. After years of feeling oversized and gawky at Lunar events, it was thrilling to feel like part of the crowd. She'd been describing an attractive redhead to Venus, enjoying the way Venus had stood on her tiptoes to try to catch a glimpse, when suddenly Venus' head had snapped around. _Oooh_, she'd said, in a tone of voice Jupiter had never heard. _Cupid, get your arrow ready. _And off she'd gone, burrowing through the crowd, a homing missile locked on target. That had been the last Jupiter had seen of her until Venus had turned up at their palace at the end of the night, giggling and love-drunk.

Nephrite hadn't been at that ball. He'd drawn the short straw that night and been in charge of palace security. While the other Shitennou had attended as honored guests, dusting off their little-used titles of nobility to ornament Endymion's court, Nephrite had been overseeing patrols and reviewing intelligence reports and scrying for threats in the palace's tactical center. And so then, as now, Jupiter had spent the evening alone, while her soul-sisters had taken their first steps into the loves that would dominate their lives.

_One of these days, _Makoto thought wistfully, _I'll stop expecting things to be different._

"A girlfriend," Nezumi sighed, oblivious to Makoto's inner thoughts. "I suppose it must be expected. Well, there's no charge for the view." She adjusted her grip on her workout bag and nodded politely at Makoto. "Good evening, Kino-san."

"Good evening, Nezumi-san." Makoto bowed her customer out. Straightening, alone again, she let herself sigh.

Her solitude wasn't fated to last long. The glass door leading to the workout area opened, and Jade poked his head out. Kanji must have finished his reps while Nezumi had been gossiping.

"Another one?" Jade asked knowingly.

Makoto nodded. "Another one."

Jade grinned. "Who for?"

Morose as her thoughts had been a minute ago, Makoto found herself grinning back. Jade was infectious that way. And there had always been a perverse joy to be found in taking him down a peg or two. "Kanji," she said.

"Aww." Jade groaned theatrically. "He's gonna win the week, isn't he."

"Looks like it." Makoto snagged a dry-erase marker and turned towards the whiteboard. The majority of its space was taken up with beautifully drawn calligraphy, courtesy of Usagi, saying _Kino's Gym_. Characters below it proclaimed operating hours, membership specials, and available classes, heavily skewed towards martial arts. Makoto had spoken the truth when she'd told Nezumi she'd always wanted to own her own business, but as usual, her hidden life had influenced her public choices. Once she'd thought of opening a bakery. But with the amount of time she and her friends spent training, a fitness center had just made better sense.

The whiteboard extended below the counter, leaving a strip of available space that wasn't visible to customers. There Makoto kept a running tally of all the times a customer had asked (or hinted) after one of the shitennou. Uncapping the marker, she added a tally mark next to Kunzite's name. He was up to nine on the week, and it was only Thursday. Every Sunday afternoon they wiped the board clean, and the 'winner' paid for Sunday evening's outing at the Crown Arcade.

Jade was leaning over the counter to see the totals as Makoto capped the marker again. He was still grinning, despite finding himself in last place so far this week, with only three tallies to his name. "You have to admit," he said to Makoto, "we've been good for business."

"I admit it freely," Makoto laughed. "But if you want to fish for compliments, you'd better go talk to Rei. _You_don't run any classes!" Kanji had started teaching advanced martial arts to a small but dedicated group who paid well for the privilege. He'd demurred every attempt on Makoto's part to share the profits with him. The profit was his, he'd said, in that he got to spar against skilled opponents whose every move wasn't a century-old book to him.

The grin faded from Jade's face. Makoto looked at him, surprised. She'd expected a riposte back, something about Kanji being an utter beast, perhaps, or made of iron – a common refrain, one he'd been echoing against his squad leader since the Silver Millennium. Despite which, Jupiter had once noticed, Jadeite had never been the first one out during hand-to-hand. That dubious honor had usually gone to Nephrite, actually…

"Speaking of Rei," Jade said.

Makoto put her hands on her hips. "If you've pissed her off," she started, amused, only to be cut off by Jade shaking his head.

"I wanted to – " he hesitated. "Makoto-chan, I don't know where Nephrite is. I'm sorry."

"I know," Makoto said, quietly. She did. What she didn't know is why Jade would bring it up now. Unless –

"I'm going to ask Rei to marry me."

The air left Makoto's lungs. Her muscles tensed instinctively, anticipating a blow. None came. Of course not. This was good news. Rei was going to be so happy.

"I already gave their Highnesses a heads up," Jade went on. "In the old days I'd've asked for permission – it feels weird not to have asked – but it would be weird to ask, too." He shoved a hand through his hair, looking sheepish. "It's weird to be us. But it's not like they're going to disapprove, anyway."

"Neither will Rei," Makoto managed to say. It was hard to breathe, somehow. But she knew that much. Rei wouldn't have disapproved if Jade _had _gone to their former liege lords, followed the old ways and old forms of behavior. She was the most traditional of any of them, by any standard, modern or ancient. Minako might have minded, and Ami definitely would have, but Rei wouldn't have. Rei wouldn't mind that Jade hadn't, though, either. She'd just be happy to be engaged at last.

"Will you, though?" Jade's gaze was direct. Sometimes Makoto forgot he was American, he fit so naturally among them. During the Silver Millennium he'd seemed no more nor less foreign to her than any Terran; their regional differences had been invisible to her. When Jade looked at her so directly, though, Makoto remembered. It was uncomfortable. So was his question. "Will you disapprove?"

"Of course not!"

"Are you sure?" Jade didn't look away. "It feels wrong. Nephrite not being around. He should be with us, I don't know what's keeping him. Doing this without him, when there's only the three of us, it feels like I'm giving up on him."

Makoto's throat closed up. _Don't say that_, she wanted to say. _You're his brothers. If you give up, where will that leave me? Where will that leave _him_?_

Out loud, she protested, "It's only been six months. That's not very long to date."

"Tell that to Senator Hino." Jade briefly cracked a grin, then shook his head. "No, I shouldn't joke, I'm sorry. But I can't wait, either." Now Jade did look away, briefly, before meeting Makoto's gaze again with a face and posture set in determination. "I waited once, and it cost me my chance. Rei and I know what we want. It's had millennia to change, if it was going to. Another few months or years in this lifetime isn't going to make a difference."

He was right, though Makoto briefly hated him for it. Wasn't she planning to throw herself into Nephrite's arms and never let go, the first chance she got? Wasn't she going to…

"I don't want you to wait," Makoto said. She _meant _it, too, with a sudden fierceness she rarely felt outside of battle. "I don't want any of us to wait. You don't have to. So don't. Get married, Jade. Be happy." She brought one hand down on the counter, hard. "Promise me you'll be happy."

"We will be," Jade said softly.

She turned away. There were more towels to fold. And if she had to fold a million towels in order to pass the wait, then she would. Because there was nothing else to do.

Except give up, of course. But Princess Jupiter had never given up. Not even at the end. And Kino Makoto was not about to break the streak.

* * *

_(The historians had discovered that lands long held by the crown were once set aside for the support of the four chosen as shitennou. His lands were in the west, as was appropriate, a fertile farmland adjoining mountains rich with mineral deposits. With these lands came a title, and so he started his new life with a new name as the Lord of Nephrite.)_

_(He had been afraid that life in the Golden Palace would be like something out of a storybook: grand, but overwhelming, scary, too much for an average boy from the country to handle. He was relieved to learn that the life of a prince – or a shitennou – was very little different from the life of the children of the wealthier families from his village. Fewer chores, more lessons. This was a change, but a welcome one, and Nephrite found himself relaxing even more when he saw that all of his lessons were in company with the other shitennou, and the prince, too, as much as possible. No effort was spared on his behalf, and he felt ashamed for wishing there was time for rest, for play, or to visit his family in the western lands.)_

_(High General Adain explained that they were each other's family here in the palace. They were to look after each other and help each other, just as their parents and siblings had done in the places from which they had come. They were to be brothers.)_

_(He had never had a brother before. He liked the thought of it.)_

_(Nephrite learned deportment, diplomacy, history. So much history, and so much of it different from what had been taught in the schools of his home village. After Endymion's birth, King Eltosian had called together the wisest historians and sagest keepers of legends and put them to work, searching for the records of the last time the Golden Crystal had been held by a ruler. Terra was rediscovering itself by the glow of that golden light. It was dizzying, sometimes, how many new things there were to learn, how fast the world around them seemed to be changing.)_

_(Nor were all their lessons solely lessons of peace. If Nephrite was to serve Endymion, he would need to learn to fight like a warrior, lead like a general, and defend his prince like the bodyguard he was in truth. The four shitennou spent long hours on the training courts learning to fight individually, as partners, as a squad. They studied tactics and logistics and maneuvers. Mythologists worked with mage-teachers to explore the limits of the power Terra had granted each shitennou. When it was discovered that Nephrite possessed some seer's ability, the world was searched for someone who could teach him to read the stars. No flicker of talent was too faint to be explored. No interest too subtle to be nurtured. Nephrite began to forget that life had ever been anything other than this daily pursuit of constant growth.)_

_(Sometimes, late at night when the moon was high over the courtyard and their practice swords had all been safely stowed until the morrow, High General Adain told them stories. She said that when Endymion had been born with the Golden Crystal shining from his soul, the king had been beside himself with joy. The return of the royal family's most prized emblem was a symbol to him that his life's work, the pursuit of a more tightly-knit kingdom and the advancement of their position in the solar system, was blessed by the gods. King Eltosian saw himself as the one who would prepare a position for Endymion as ruler of a united Terra and member of the Silver Alliance. He dreamed about immortality for his son and his son's sons, living magical lives with the witches of the sky.)_

_(Nephrite was growing older now, and his family had come to visit him a handful times. They always said they were so proud of him and what he was doing. It was good to see them, but strange, too. High General Adain had been right. Endymion and the other shitennou were his family now. These other people were nice to visit with occasionally, but their lives were so very different that it was hard to talk to them. They had little in common anymore. Not even a name.)_

_(Family should have something in common. Not a name – that wasn't how it worked for nobility, and Nephrite was noble now, in spite of his boyish resolutions. He didn't fit with the folk of his old village anymore. He fit here. And he wanted to have something to show that. To be for the five of them what shared surnames were for more ordinary families.)_

_(He thought and thought about what it could be. Then, sometime during Endymion's sixteenth summer, a new mage-teacher arrived to begin to educate them in her specialty – amulets. And then Nephrite knew exactly what he wanted to share.)_

* * *

Mizuno Ami would not have believed so much could change within half a year. She had grown so used to being herself that it had never occurred to her that she could be anyone else. _Herself _was not a particularly bad person to be, anyway. She was smart and successful. She had friends who loved and understood her. She had a purpose; actually, she had several purposes. She had never thought of herself as particularly unfulfilled.

But Ami felt with her whole heart or not at all. She had given herself away in one lifetime, and it was frightening how easy and impossible it was to slip into her new old life.

She had never expected to want to fold her life completely in with another's, immerse herself as only half of a whole. She could not now believe she had ever lived any other way. It was like breathing, like gravity.

Zen's smile was a private thing, for her alone. In public, Ami was overwhelmingly shy, unwilling even to hold Zen's hand. When she was surrounded by the rest of the world, it was harder to forget that their renewed relationship was only technically a week old. She preferred to stay inside with him, in the tiny alcove of the Silver Millennium they created for themselves.

Of course, neither of them could not stay inside forever. Zen had work. Ami had class and her externship at the hospital. But for the first time in her life, Ami was eager for the time to pass, eager to return _home_. Both to Zen and to the project that was consuming their spare time.

One early morning in the seventh month after Zen's return found him sitting cross-legged in Ami's favorite armchair. It was wide enough to allow her to arrange herself in any position she had yet attempted, useful for long study sessions. Better, its broad arms could balance a medical textbook at full spread, several stacks of notes, a sandwich, and a mug of tea without spilling. This morning, Zen had balanced the computer in his own lap, while the arms held the remains of his breakfast and _two_cups of tea.

Ami pulled her robe into place around her and picked up the untouched cup. The first sip of the morning was bliss. She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ears and perched on the arm of the chair, leaning over to kiss Zen's temple, delighting in the tickle of his hair on her cheek. "What's the story?"

"Genetic algorithm finished its run overnight," Zen answered, attention still mostly on the screen. He freed one hand to grab Ami's and press a kiss into her palm; his other hand continued a somewhat slower dance across the keyboard. "I'm hoping to have something soon."

Ami leaned against the back of the chair and sipped her tea again. _Something _being what they had been desperately searching for for the past six months: a clue, any clue, to the whereabouts of their missing member. Nephrite's absence was a mystery, and not the kind that Ami enjoyed reading in her spare time. It was like a disease Ami couldn't diagnose. The other senshi and shitennou were sad, or hopeful, or worried, according to their own particular personalities. Ami wasn't any of those things. Ami was _angry_. This wasn't right. Nephrite had no business being elsewhere. Something had gone badly awry with the correct functioning of the universe. Fortunately for the universe, Mizuno Ami was here to fix it. She had never yet met a problem she couldn't solve, and had no intention of starting now.

They'd long since gone through the data she had brought back from the hospital, searching for Nephrite. Nothing had come up, and the data had been abandoned as a dead end, but Ami and Zen recently decided to expand their pool of information. Zen's ability to massage computerized data was far in excess of her own, but Ami viewed it as an equal partnership: her contribution was backdoor access to whatever system Zen needed next. Over the past months she had gotten into personnel records at most of the major universities in metropolitan Tokyo, the government payroll department, and the major research laboratories. They had been sorting down a list of places they thought Nephrite was likely to be. Not finding him in a public or scientific organization, they had at last turned to the corporate ones; over the last week Ami had wormed her way into half a dozen of the most prominent companies to have headquarters in Japan's capital. Zen had been churning through the results ever since.

The computer beeped. Zen tapped in a quick command. Data began scrolling down the screen in response.

"Nothing, nothing, nothing…" he grumbled under his breath. "Yes, dear, but if you'd just print out the details as I _asked _you…" Ami sipped her tea, unperturbed. Zen talked to his computers the way some people talked to recalcitrant children. It was rather soothing, actually.

The computer beeped several more times in rapid succession, then gonged once. Zen fell abruptly silent. Ami nearly dropped her tea. That was a sound they hadn't heard in months. Not since the first high-value leads had all petered out. Whatever they'd found, it wasn't a maybe or a what-if. It was something good. Amy set her tea down carefully on the adjacent side table, just in case.

Zen keyed in several rapid commands. Several screens reconfigured themselves in apparent response to their master's whims, and a new window appeared. Ami squinted at the logo, trying to remember…

"They do financial and consulting work for large businesses," Zen murmured. "The government, too, I'm pretty sure. Kanji would know. But I think…" he paged down, and a personnel file appeared, complete with employee photo.

Ami considered the image. The general physical markers were present – hair and eye color correct, strong chin, nose that could charitably be called assertive. But she had not been very well acquainted with the man concealed by Nephrite's official presence. She quirked an eyebrow at Zen instead.

"Close," he answered her unspoken question. "Very close. We're none of us identical to who we were then…"

"And it doesn't help that we died in late adolescence, while now we're looking for a fully grown adult."

Zen nodded, intent on the screen. "But visually, he could be Nephrite's older brother, easily. And the other markers have a high correlation."

"You cross-referenced against – "

"Yes."

"Good." She smiled. "Wouldn't want all that time sneaking around the hospital to go to waste."

He took his attention away from the laptop and bestowed a heart-stopping smile on her. "Never."

Ami returned her gaze to the photo. "Could that be it?" she wondered. "Just like that – could we really – "

"We won't know until we meet him." Zen stretched. He reached out absently, and Ami picked up her own tea and put it in his hand. Zen drank without seeming to notice that it was Ami's preferred chamomile instead of his own usual breakfast blend, a sign of how distracted he was.

Ami waited, letting him finish his train – trains – of thought. It was a courtesy she appreciated when it was extended to her; something that had been missing from her friendships before the senshi, and from her relationships before Zen. He'd joked once that were they to actually speak to each other, their whole relationship would fall apart. In this lifetime, that joke had been. Zoicite would never have dared to joke about their relationship, for fear it would have come true. Mercury had never known how careful Zoicite had always been around her, how tentative. Ami knew. It was another way in which the _her _she had become was better than the _her _she had been before.

Zen said, "I'm worried about telling Makoto."

Ami looked at him in some surprise. "She'll be over the moon," she said. "Any hope at all…"

"That's what I'm worried about." Zen set the laptop down on the arm of the chair, gently, as if it might explode. "This is the most promising lead we've had in months. What if it's not him?"

Ami opened her mouth, then closed it again and thought. If they told Makoto, Makoto would be thrilled. She'd build up her hopes – hopes which had been flagging. If it turned out not to be Nephrite...

But: "It doesn't feel right not to tell her."

Zen pointed at the screen. "We know where this man works and where he lives. We can easily figure out what train he takes on his commute. It's morning now. We can intercept him coming out of work this evening. If it's Nephrite, we'll know right away, and we can bring him right to Makoto. It's only the wait of a few hours, Ami. And she wouldn't be able to see him any faster if we told her now. Unless she went and tried to visit their offices…"

"Which she might do." And then what would happen if it wasn't Nephrite? Makoto would have mortal embarrassment to deal with on top of everything else. But convincing her to wait even until evening might be hard. And then if Ami did convince her, then Zen was right. The difference in time would be almost nothing.

"Exactly," Zen said ruefully.

Ami sighed. "All right," she said. "But we're going to end up buying her _and _Nephrite milkshakes for the next six months, if this turns out to _be _Nephrite and we've taken even a minute longer to put them in the same room than we had to."

"Gladly," was all Zen said. But something about the way he said it, the twist of his lips, reminded Ami that Zen was missing his brother as much in his own way as Makoto was missing her lover.

Ami came around the chair and put her arms around Zen. "We will find him," she said fiercely. "We will."

Zen's cheek pressed against hers, her hair caught in strands between them. "We will," he agreed.

She straightened. "Then let's look at those trains."

"Yes." Zen pulled the laptop back into his lap, and started loading up train tables.


	3. Chapter 2

"Knock knock!"

Makoto looked up, surprised. The bite on the end of her chopsticks wobbled slightly, and she hastily stuffed it into her mouth before it could fall, chewing and swallowing. "Minako!" she said. "Come in – are you back already? I thought your contract had another week to run."

Minako rolled her eyes and came the rest of the way into the small break room at the back of Kino's Gym. "Wardrobe malfunction. No, not the kind you're thinking of. The outfits for the last week of shooting got sent to Canada somehow, and the Canada shoot's outfits got sent to us. The magazine representative nearly had a fit. They didn't want to pay us to wait around while they got the error sorted out, so they sent us all home instead."

"It's cheaper to pay you to fly round-trip twice?" Makoto was skeptical.

"Eh, they'll probably hire a couple local models for the last few shots, and if they don't like the results, bury them behind the fold. They got plenty of my beauty in the first few weeks; they'll have no trouble filling the cover." Minako rolled her eyes outrageously. Makoto laughed, as she was meant to.

"So what can I do for you? Want a workout? I have to warn you – it's busy in there right now." The corporate work day had ended an hour or so ago, and the salarymen that made up the bulk of Makoto's clients were hard at work unwinding from the stress of the day.

Minako shook her head and produced a box of cookies from her bag with a flourish. "I want help eating _these_," she said. "After a month of salads and water, I'm dying for some good old-fashioned carbohydrates."

"Pull up a chair," Makoto said generously. Minako could eat the entire box without gaining an ounce, thanks to a senshi's revved-up metabolism, but Makoto wasn't going to say no to a treat. Or a mealtime visitor, for that matter. Speaking of which… "Please tell me you're planning to eat something _besides _cookies."

"I had ramen at the train station," Minako said virtuously. "Come on, dig in."

Makoto slid her own rice bowl aside and reached for a cookie. "To guilty pleasures," she said, then took a bite and made an indecent sound. "These are _good_."

"Fresh from Germany," Minako said. "Or, well, a twelve-hour flight from Germany, anyway."

Makoto finished off the cookie in two more bites, sighing happily. But the other shoe always had to drop, and Minako wasn't going to just drop by on the same day she'd gotten in from a trans-Pacific flight unless she had bigger fish to fry than a box of German butter cookies. "Okay, spill," Makoto said. "What is it?"

"I can't just want to hang out with a friend?"

Makoto had to laugh. "Your innocent face stopped being convincing about the fourth time you used it to lie your way out of trouble with Queen Selene. Plus, you've been my commanding officer for how long? I can tell when something's up."

"The time we were sleeping in the crystal doesn't count!" Minako protested, but subsided. "All right, all right. Have another cookie."

"Oh, I'm definitely having another cookie." Makoto helped herself. "So?"

"So… has Jade talked to you?"

Makoto deflated. It was almost comical to feel her previous good mood running out of her like water from the shower. "Yeah."

"Oh!" Minako nodded to herself. "Good for him. I know he's still feeling hesitant around the rest of us girls, so I'm glad to hear he was comfortable enough to tell you himself."

Makoto shrugged. "He knew us best, before," she pointed out. Jadeite had been the Golden Throne's ambassador to the Silver Alliance. The opening of diplomacy had been tentative and short-lived – no one, outside their respective romances, had gotten to know anyone _well _– but Jadeite had spent the most time at court functions with them all. Lady Jupiter would have called him friend, if anyone had ever asked.

"True enough." Minako selected another cookie, slowly. "So… how are you feeling?"

"How am I supposed to feel?" Makoto dropped her cookie on her napkin, brushing the crumbs from her fingers. "Rei's my sister. I'm happy for her."

"Of course you are," Minako said. If she'd said it soothingly, or condescendingly, Makoto might have shouted at her. But Minako just said it like a simple statement of fact. "I didn't fly back from Germany for you to tell me what I already know, Makoto."

"I thought there was a wardrobe malfunction."

"There was. I could have stayed."

Makoto shook her head. Looked away. The break room was small, just a corner of space tucked between the front office and the two locker rooms. There was a table in one corner with two chairs pulled up to it, currently occupied by the two senshi. A desk in another corner held the business' accounts. A coat rack was squeezed between them, and the door took up most of the wall space. But it was Makoto's. It was all Makoto's. It was something she had gotten herself, without having to wait for someone to come back to her.

"It makes sense for them to get married," she said eventually.

"Of course," Minako agreed. "That doesn't tell me – "

"What do you want out of me?" Makoto felt guilty for snapping, but really – "What do you want me say?"

"It's okay if you're feeling… other things."

"I know it's okay," Makoto said. "It's okay to everyone else. It's not okay to me. I don't want to be feeling this way, Minako. I just want to be happy for Rei."

"Oh, Mako-chan," Minako said. She was out of her chair in the same instant Makoto was, and they half-stumbled over the table as they collided into a hug.

"It's just not fair," Makoto hiccupped into Minako's hair. "Rei got him back first. She got him first back then, too. I was last then and I'm last now and I'm starting to think Nephrite's _never _coming back."

"He is," Minako insisted.

"Mina-chan, we don't even know where he is. At least back in the Silver Millennium there were people who knew he existed! Now we have no proof he's even alive."

"What are you saying?" Minako sounded horrified.

"You haven't thought of it?" Makoto pulled back enough to wipe at her eyes. "Before our powers activate, we're just mortals. He could have been hit by a bus, died of cancer – he could have had SIDS as a baby! Even with our powers – Mamoru died on that plane." She and Minako both shivered at the memory.

"But Usagi brought him back," Minako reminded them both. "And she wished for the Shitennou back, too. Both then and after we fought Beryl. She just wished for everyone back, and that includes Nephrite."

"There's always another plane, Mina-chan." Makoto's knees threatened to betray her. She sat down hastily, before they could.

Minako promptly sat down in the same chair, disregarding physics in order to squish Makoto into another hug. "Then we'll just go get Usagi to wish him back right now," she said. "She can do it as many times as it takes."

"She – no she can't!" Makoto stared reproachfully at Venus, who was _supposed _to be the _head _of Usagi's personal guard – "It drains her practically dry! The last time she made a wish on the crystal she spent a week in bed. No, she can't do it as many times as it takes!"

"Okay, so 'as many times as it takes' was an exaggeration. But!" Minako poked Makoto when she tried to speak again, giving Minako the chance to continue. "There is a world of difference between wishing back the entire population of Earth and wishing back a single person. I'll also point out to you that Usagi has been working very hard on controlling her tendency to magical overkill."

Makoto nodded reluctant agreement to this point. When she'd first gotten her powers, both in this life and the last, Usagi had had a bad tendency to dump a bucket of magic out the window every time she tried to perform a simple working, which was inefficient, to say the least. Dangerous, to say more. Magic came from one's life force, and there were no shortcuts to replenishing life force. Rest, food, and most of all, time. Things that were in short supply in the middle of the battle. In their last life, the worst consequence of Usagi's magical inefficiency had been the time she'd used her powers to create flowers to offer a diplomat during a reception on the moon and then passed out. In this lifetime, if she were to pass out while, say, fighting a youma, the consequences could be significantly higher.

Usagi _had _been working on it, Makoto knew that. She was much better about using only the necessary amount of magic for a given working, conserving her power, and paying attention to her body's needs in the aftermath. But…

"No buts!" Minako said.

"I didn't say that out loud!" Makoto defended.

"You _looked _it."

Makoto started to say she had _not_, then subsided. She probably had at that.

Minako nodded in satisfaction at this capitulation. "As the one who has been working with Usagi on this, I really do believe that she can ration the amount of energy she uses to make the wish to something that will leave her no worse off than a good night's sleep will fix. And _as_the captain of her personal guard, I am affirming to you right now that at the current threat level – which is nonexistent – we will be more than capable of protecting her during said good night's sleep. This poses little to no risk and presents a significant opportunity of reward."

"Significant?" Makoto looked up. "So you think – you think – " _You do think he's dead._

Minako sighed. She tipped her head to the side, which had the unintended side effect of making blond hair fall into Makoto's face, but Makoto barely even noticed. She was hanging on Minako's next words.

"I think… it's not an unreasonable thing to worry about, at this stage," Minako said at last. "I think Nephrite being dead is a far more likely possibility than Nephrite voluntarily choosing to stay away from you or Endymion. And I think that, given the risk is so low, it's worth a try."

Makoto processed this. "You're still going to sleep over at Usagi's tonight, aren't you."

"Yep." Minako's nod briefly knocked their heads together. "And I'm going to ask that Usagi wait to make the wish until she was about to go to sleep anyway, to minimize downtime. But – well, it sounds weird to say this, but if Nephrite _is _dead, isn't that… good? What I mean is, if you're right, then we should see results pretty quickly."

"For all we know he's in America. Jade was." But Makoto felt the tug of the corners of her lips trying to turn up. She was imagining it: Nephrite walking through the door of the gym. Sweeping her off her feet. He'd kiss her. And then she'd use that new throw Kunzite had taught her, the one he'd learned from that eighty-year-old man who still wiped the floor with half the regulars in Kunzite's martial arts class. Nephrite wouldn't know that one. So Makoto would win, which would mean that _she _would get to kiss _him _next, and then when they'd gotten upstairs to her apartment –

"Venus to Makoto," Minako said, tugging herself free of Makoto and standing hastily up. "You realize that, as the senshi of love, I can _tell _when you start daydreaming. At least, if we're touching at the time."

Makoto's cheeks promptly caught flame. "Would you believe me if I said I had totally forgotten about that ability of yours?"

"Actually, yes," Minako said after a moment's thought. "So, before I leave you to your thoughts for the evening, shall we give Usagi a call?"

"Are you going to tell her about the daydreaming?"

Minako gave her an injured look. "And violate the sanctity of our sisterhood?"

"So… yes."

"Only if you don't make me call her by myself."

"Ugh, _fine_." Makoto held out her hand, and Minako put the cell in it triumphantly. Makoto hit the speed dial.

Usagi picked up on the second ring. "Mako-chan!"

"Hey, Usagi," Makoto said hesitantly. She glanced up at Minako, took a deep breath, and reminded herself that it was okay to ask for help. "I have a request."

* * *

"Still here, Ishikawa?" That was Mizuki, leaning against the door of Nobuo's office.

"Yes, for a little while longer. I want to finish this report." Out in the main area of the corporate office, Haneda and Suzuki walked around turning out the lights, before departing with their heads together amid a cloud of giggles. The lamp on Nobuo's desk assumed additional brightness, spilling out of his door past Mizuki and casting shadows on the walls.

"If you're thinking you have to make up time for Friday, don't worry about it," Mizuki advised. "You're the hardest worker I've got, _kouhai. _I don't need you to go killing yourself."

Nobuo's smile was genuine. "I'm not. I'll have a more relaxing evening if this is done before I leave, that's all."

"Yeah, yeah." Mizuki rubbed the back of his neck. "You say so. All right, but leave the attachments off. I'm having Maeda do a few extra charts, and there's something funny about the operating income tables. We're not putting this one to bed tonight no matter how hard you work, got it?"

"I understand," Nobuo answered. "I'm just going to finish writing up the cash flow analysis."

"Okay." Mizuki pushed off the door and grabbed his bag from the floor. "Until tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," Nobuo agreed, already lost in his work again.

He had told Mizuki the truth – he really would relax more if he had gotten all of his work done first. It was just the way he was. Nobuo came from hardworking parents from a hardworking neighborhood. Life was simple and straightforward. So was the path to success. Hard work. At school, around the house, at the part-time job. Strong work ethic. Honesty and integrity. A college degree. A good job.

Nobuo had never been inclined to question the path they had laid out for him. His parents lived good lives, and he had had examples before him all his life of the lifestyles of the less fortunate. He had attended a good high school and a respected college. He had always loved math, so he studied accounting and finance. He'd landed a job in his field shortly after graduation, where he soon acquired a reputation as a talented, conscientious young man.

Sometimes he dreamed, but it wasn't important.

Nobuo worked hard and achieved his goals young. His mother had wanted him to move back home after college, to save money for the house he would buy when he found his wife. But he had wanted to begin living an independent life, so he left the pleasant house in Tokyo's far-flung suburbs for a compact one-bedroom apartment downtown. The building was old but well-built, dating from the first real postwar economic boom in the sixties. The neighborhood's age meant it had real trees in the carefully cut squares of earth spaced out along the sidewalks, and the short walk to the subway every morning and evening was a pleasant one. He liked all of his neighbors. He was saving a large portion of his paycheck every month. He visited his parents for dinner one weekend a month.

He was pleased with everything he'd accomplished. It was everything he'd expected it to be. But, somehow, he was finding that the space in his heart allocated for worldly success was smaller than he'd thought it would be. He'd achieved his goals, but he wasn't satisfied. Something was still missing.

He knew what his parents would say, had he asked. They wanted to see him find a nice girl and get married. Buy a house. Have some children.

He wanted those things too. But somehow, the closer he got to that goal, the harder it was to move forward. There were many nice girls at work, but somehow he forgot to think about them in the light of potential girlfriends until he was sitting on the train to the suburbs, remembering that he was no closer to having something to tell his mother at dinner that week.

Nobuo pushed back from his desk at last. It had gotten dark out while he'd been working. Without the overhead lights, the glow of the computer monitor was searing. Nobuo blinked and bright afterimages burned on the inside of his eyelids.

But he was done. And it wasn't even that late. Tokyo's nightlife would only be hitting its stride. Nobuo could go to a bar, or wander among the shops in Akihabara seeing the bright new toys. Walk down to the Sumida or stroll through Ueno Park. All the wide variety of things a young single salaryman might do after his long day was done.

Nobuo stood and collected his jacket and briefcase. He was going to go home. That was all he wanted to do. All he'd ever wanted to do. He just wanted a home to go to, and a family to share it with.

Perhaps his mother was right. But once again Nobuo found himself sitting on the train on the first leg of his subway journey, only just then remembering that the young lady who'd sold him the dinner box now resting on his lap had smiled at him as if she'd wished to know him better.

As he changed trains, he resolved to do better. There were many young people on the platform. Most were in motion, but a few were still, waiting, as he was, for the next local train. Nobuo looked around. There, two girls dressed like hostesses leaned into each other, eyes bright as they gossiped. Beyond, an older woman carrying a briefcase like his own. Older, but her ring finger was empty, and Nobuo's mother had always said he had an old soul. Or here, standing in the line for the train almost adjacent to Nobuo, a serious-looking young lady in the coat of a doctor-in-training caught his eye. Her hair was more blue than the dress she wore beneath the white coat, and she appeared to be focused on reading a text as thick as Nobuo's briefcase. It was a medical text of some kind, that much was clear, but so specialized that he didn't even recognize all of the characters on the spine. Nobuo squinted, trying to see – was that combination of characters 'anosmia'? – when the blue-haired lady looked up suddenly, and their gazes locked.

Instantly Nobuo felt his cheeks flame with embarrassment. "Forgive me," he apologized, bowing for good measure. They were close enough that he could speak without shouting over the noise, but that almost made it worse. To have been caught staring from such a close distance – how else could the young lady interpret it, but as inappropriate? "I was only – your text interested me, I rarely encounter characters I don't recognize – " That was worse. Now he sounded like a snob as well as a hentai. "Forgive me," he repeated, thoroughly abashed, and made to turn away, back to the empty platform where the train would appear.

But the lady shocked him. She reached out and put her hand on his arm, turning him back towards her. "Don't be silly," she said, smiling at him. "For such old friends as we are, there's no need to stand on ceremony."

She didn't seem angry, and that was good. But she had clearly mistaken him for someone else. As soon as she realized her error, she'd withdraw. For a moment, Nobuo was tempted to let her continue in her error. It would save the awkwardness…

_Yes, until she tries to make small talk with you about mutual acquaintances you don't have! _Instead Nobuo returned her smile, still apologetically, and said, "I'm afraid you have me confused with someone else."

The lady's smile slipped slightly. "That can't be," she insisted. "I'm – I'm certain – " She looked at him searchingly. "Don't you recognize me?"

Nobuo shook his head slowly. "I'm sorry, ojou-san. I do think there's been a mistake."

"There you are!" A new voice spoke, a young man about Nobuo's own age, who appeared suddenly beside the young lady. From the way he immediately put himself in the lady's personal space, and the way she leaned into him, Nobuo saw at once that they were dating. So the young lady was not single, as Nobuo had been assuming. Which was the least of Nobuo's worries at this point. Of far more concern was the way this new young man was looking searchingly at Nobuo. Seemed to have been speaking to Nobuo when he'd said, _there you are._

"As I was just saying," Nobuo said carefully, "there's been an error. The young lady mistook me for an acquaintance of hers. Perhaps you have as well?"

"Nonsense," the young man said sharply. "Look at me, man. You know me."

Nobuo stared. Rude – but the young man had asked. So he looked. He saw blond hair and green eyes; a foreign ancestor, no doubt. Beyond that, there was nothing remarkable. A slight frame, middling height. Glasses. Nobuo strained his memory. Had he known this man as a child, perhaps? Had they attended school together? But surely Nobuo would remember anyone with hair so bright, eyes so intense. So strange. Nobuo was feeling strange just looking at the other man. He tried to look at the lady instead, but that was no help. Looking at her made him feel dizzy.

He stepped back with a jerk. "No," Nobuo said sharply. "I don't know you. Either of you. Ojou-san, I apologize again for staring, but this – this is an error." The public address system crackled through the station, announcing the arrival of Nobuo's train, but he took another step back instead of moving forward with the rest of the line. The lady and the man were waiting for the same train, and he didn't want to be on the same car with them. "Please excuse me," he said, turning. The turnstiles were to his left, the exit stairs just beyond them. Fresh air was what he needed. The walk home from here was not so long. It would do him good.

"Wait," the young lady tried to say, reaching out to catch at his arm again. Nobuo was out of reach. "Wait!"

"Excuse me," Nobuo said again, polite to the last.

"Brother, please," the man said, pleading. _That _frightened Nobuo more than anything else that had yet happened. Something was wrong here. The pair of them were unwell. They needed help. And Nobuo needed to get away.

"Leave me alone," he said, stepping back again even as the man moved forward.

The train rushed into the station at last. In the sudden crowd of people disembarking, Nobuo was able to escape.

* * *

_(The throne room was enormous. Nephrite walked through it, one familiar half-step behind his prince, listening to the echoes of his footsteps ringing off the marble columns and coming back to his ears. A sound so common, so familiar, that he should disregard it easily. Today he heard the echoes uneasily. They seemed discordant, somehow, and just a half-second too slow to return.)_

Nobuo stepped into his small city apartment, turning on the lights and setting his briefcase down in one fluid motion. He wasn't thinking about what he's doing, but he didn't need to. He did this every day. His shoes come off and his slippers on in the same way. Nobuo blinked, and he'd set his bento down on the small table, then gone to get his utensils and a glass of water from the kitchenette. Even by the standards of Tokyo the apartment was small. But Nobuo didn't need much space. Only enough to work in – to prepare and eat simple food, to sleep, to bathe. He didn't need a palace.

_(Endymion seated himself on the dais. Not on the throne, but adjacent to it, though in King Eltosian's absence, he technically had the right. Endymion was no arrogant child grasping at power. He honored his father, and his people honored him for it.)_

_(That would matter more, except that the people of Terra no longer honored the King himself.)_

Mechanically Nobuo ate. He'd turned on the small television, as was his habit. The background noise was usually soothing. A succession of anchors murmured the day's news as Nobuo filled his belly.

_(Supplicant after supplicant came before the Prince, and though the details differed, the story remained the same. Discontent was widespread. Even those who were not actively massing in rebellion against the Golden Throne rumbled with their displeasure. Some of those who came to the palace came for succor, for promises of defense, for aid. More of those came to complain, in varying terms, of the disruptions to their way of life already beginning as the negotiations with the Silver Alliance marched onwards.)_

After eating, Nobuo broke down the components of the bento box – packaging to the recycling, waste to the bin. His chopsticks he carried into the kitchenette to wash. Fumbling for the soap, he jarred his elbow against a low cabinet, and dropped the utensils, which clattered loudly against the metal of the sink.

_("Your Majesty!" The sight and sound of the door swinging open shattered the calm atmosphere like a knife. Nephrite was on his feet and between the prince and danger before the echoes of the cry had finished returning from the stone walls.)_

Nobuo jerked back, badly afraid. The same sense of wrongness he'd had on the station platform was creeping back over him. It enveloped him in waves, sometimes ebbing briefly, but always returning, seemingly growing stronger every with every resurgence.

_(Endymion waved him aside, but Nephrite moved only far enough to allow the spy to address the Prince, and grudged even those few inches. In the background, as if from a distance, he heard Endymion smoothing over the ruffled feathers of the man whose audience had just been interrupted, sending him on his way mollified if not precisely happy. The etiquette master would be pleased. Nephrite cared not a fig for the etiquette master. The man who had interrupted them was one who had ridden with the King, and he hadn't yet spoken a word beyond _your Majesty_, but to one trained as Nephrite had been, everything about him shouted of disaster.)_

"Nothing is wrong," Nobuo said out loud. The sound of his own voice shocked him, and he looked around almost wildly. Everything was normal – his small kitchenette, the table where he ate, the television with its talking heads. Around the corner he could see the closet where his futon waited, rolled-up, for Nobuo to retire to bed. The only thing not neatly in its place were the chopsticks scattered in the bottom of the sink. And even that wasn't _wrong_; merely untidy. Nothing was _wrong_. There was no reason for this creeping sense of dread.

Nobuo shook his head, as if that could rid himself of the feeling, and reached in to pick up the liquid soap. The bottle burped slightly as he handled it, and a few bubbles escaped it. Most of them popped at once. But one floated in midair, growing inexplicably larger, and in its reflection Nobuo saw:

_(A limp – the newcomer was saddle sore, and this was no boy with his first pony, but a man for whom long days in the saddle were routine. He had ridden hard and fast and taken no rest. Gauntness in his cheeks, though already sinew and bone, said he had dared not even take fruit from the trees of the farms he had ridden through, lest he draw attention to his passage. Dust in his hair, not quite enough to conceal the blood matting one temple. Alas, Nephrite could also see the clarity in the man's eyes, and could not believe him addled.)_

Nobuo put the soap down. "I'll wash them in the morning," he said out loud, defiantly.

He turned around and went to the closet. A good night's sleep, he thought. That's what he needed. When he woke up tomorrow, everything would be back to normal. Just the way Ishikawa Nobuo liked it.

_(Nephrite knew, even before the man knelt and kissed Endymion's hands. Eltosian was dead. The rebels had made their move. Civil war was upon them.)_

_(They were not ready.)_


	4. Chapter 3

_(King Eltosian was dead. So was High General Adain, who had insisted on going with him, saying she would trust his safety to no one else in such a dangerous undertaking. Endymion must have wanted to curse her for her failure, but even before his shitennou brothers, he only bewailed the knowledge and experience the Terran forces had lost with her death.)_

_(The recently elevated High General Kunzite was marshalling the army for a long, drawn-out war of attrition. Guard troops were pouring in from the three quarters of Terra still loyal to the Golden Throne, but they were more used to skirmishes than war. Worse, they could not come in their full strength. Banditry was worsening in the grainlands of the west, threatening the food supply of the entire kingdom. In the south, the rainforests were burning, fires advancing unchecked to the walls of the cities as the emptied villages went up in flames. The northern lands were divided. The northwestern holdings were loyal, but small. The northeastern princedoms feared their neighbors more than the rebels and sent only token troops. And the far eastern lands were already under the control of the self-proclaimed Queen Beryl.)_

_(Nephrite's powers were a blessing to Terra and his own personal curse. As a seer, the information he could glean from the stars was invaluable, producing military intelligence on a level that even the best spies couldn't touch. But that ability meant Nephrite was trapped behind the walls of his palace. While his brothers rode out to battle, he spent hours searching the sky, desperate for a future that didn't involve death. When the stars failed him, he turned to other methods of scrying, though none had ever worked so well for him, and none returned him a different answer.)_

_(The first battles seemed to go well, but as the Golden Army's distance from Atalantia increased, their fortunes waned. Voices murmured that perhaps High General Kunzite was too young, too inexperienced… Endymion raged privately against the thought, but Kunzite himself convinced Endymion that he could ill afford further dissent. A second force needed to be deployed regardless; there was plenty to go around, for those who thought themselves suited to war. The catastrophic losses on the western front at least had the effect of silencing those who questioned Kunzite's leadership. The bloodletting on the eastern front was unprecedented, but at least Kunzite was holding the line. Not that any of it would matter if they lost the grainlands to the west. The rebel armies were well supplied from the fertile fields of the east, but the supply lines to the Terran forces were stretched thin, and growing thinner by the day. The west was not in open revolt, but Nephrite well know that was only because Atalantia and the Golden Armies stood between them and the rebels. The forces Endymion had sent to restore order were only driving the populace further towards rebellion.)_

_(Then came the day when the skies turned black, the stars shrieked in agony, and for the first time, Nephrite learned the name _Metallia_.)_

* * *

Nobuo woke. The room around him was just as it had always been: tatami floors, sliding-screen walls closing off this small area, making two rooms out of a single-room apartment. No bigger than a closet, but enough for his futon. It had never made him feel claustrophobic before.

Darkness. Something about the darkness – _tasting _darkness, which didn't make any sense – darkness pouring down his throat, and he was swallowing it, and it was agony, he just wanted to flee, but if he didn't hold on and keep feeling it it was going to get _worse_–

Nobuo stumbled out of his sheets and shoved the screen door open. It barely helped. The entire apartment was small, and the only light came from the small nightlight on the kitchen counter. He flipped on the light switch and winced from the harsh brightness.

A glass of water failed to scrub the oily taste from his mouth. A look at the clock told him that it was early even by Tokyo standards – barely four in the morning – but the thought of trying to return to sleep was repulsive. Nobuo opened the door to the small refrigerator out of sheer habit, but the sight of food nearly made him gag, and he closed it again.

"A walk," he said out loud, and refused to think that he'd done so to challenge the darkness, the emptiness. This was insane. His apartment had never felt small before. It had never felt empty, either. How could a place feel as if the walls were closing in, while at the same time feel echoing and lonely?

He grabbed his coat.

* * *

Makoto drained her coffee, put the cup in the sink, and went out to the main room. The minute hand on the wall clock was ticking its final tick to the top of the hour. She hit the lights, and Kino's Gym was open for business.

Half an hour later, the sun wasn't up but the gym was full. Early morning and late evening were the busiest time for her, as salarymen and women squeezed in their workouts either before or after the work day. Makoto was busy and glad to be so. It was hard to think about Rei's upcoming engagement while shoving yet another load of towels into the washing machine.

She was happy for her friend, of course. Delighted. Makoto kept that firmly in mind as she bowed another set of long-time clients into the locker room. Then she grabbed the mop. It had started to rain at some point, and the floors were getting damp as patrons continued to enter.

Halfway through, the bell _dinged _as someone opened the door. Makoto straightened and turned to greet the newcomer, just as a voice said, "Excuse me – I'm sorry – I'm not a member, but it was raining and you're one of the only places open – "

Makoto dropped the mop.

_(Another ball at the Golden Palace, and Jupiter was seriously beginning to wonder if Terra meant for any actual diplomacy to take place. If they were endeavoring to impress the Silver Alliance with lavish parties, they would be sorely mistaken. Terra was certainly pleasant enough in its own way, but she had stood beneath the lava falls of her home world; she had swum in the oceans of Neptune and sunned herself on the sands of Venus. Terra may have lava and oceans and sand all on one planet – certainly a unique environment – but Makoto wasn't even being shown those wonders. All she had seen so far of Terra were its palace walls. And all she had seen so far of its people were courtiers. Courtiers were well enough in their place – the Silver Alliance certainly had plenty – but she was a warrior. She preferred more straightforward company.)_

The newcomer was staring at her. His hair was wet, dripping into his eyes, and he shoved it back without taking breaking her gaze.

_(A pair of figures approached, clearly making towards her. She put a polite smile on her face. The woman in the lead was one of the Terran liaisons to the Silver Alliance. The man behind her was unfamiliar to her, but she recognized his dress. The military-cut jacket in grey, the matching trousers, the fine linen shirt, even the heavy ring that signified nobility – he would be introduced under his noble title, but this must be the mysterious missing shitennou. The fourth member of Prince Endymion's personal guard, whom no one had yet met. The others of Endymion's guard had worn just such uniforms, varying only in the color of the piping along the shoulders and down the trousers, and in the crest on the ring. The 'hottie' Minako had spotted on their first ball had turned out to be the leader of that guard, in a spectacular case of like finding like. Another member of that guard had since become the first Terran in millennia to visit Luna Prime as the official Terran ambassador to the Silver Alliance. The third had turned out to be a scientist. And this one? Who would he turn out to be?)_

_(The pair arrived, bowing and curtseying in the Terran mode. "A good evening to you, Lady Jupiter," the Terran liaison. "If you will permit – allow me to introduce Lord Nephrite, one of his Highness' shitennou, who particularly wished to make your acquaintance.")_

_(She looked at him and smiled, because he was smiling at her, and because she liked the way he was looking at her. Forthrightly and openly – it was nothing like any of the other courtiers, here or at home. But it was just the way she liked to be looked at.)_

_("You will have to forgive me," Lord Nephrite said. "I'm sure it's not the done thing on Jupiter to admit so honestly that you're interested in someone. It certainly isn't the done thing here. But when I saw you just now, I forgot all about anything else but wanting to meet you.")_

_(It could be flattery, but it doesn't sound that way: Jupiter has heard her share of empty platitudes as the only daughter of the Jovian crown, and there was always a ring to it this Lord Nephrite was entirely without.)_

The man in the gym – the man who looked so much like Nephrite that it almost broke her heart – looked around almost wildly, and then seemed to see the mop on the floor for the first time. "I'm so sorry – "

"Oh no," Makoto said at the same time. "That's all right, I don't – "

"Let me," he insisted. He bent down to pick it up, but he never took his eyes off of her.

_(Lord Nephrite was – different. Oh, he bowed over her hand just like all the other Terran nobles. He led her through dances where they separated and spun around with others before coming back together, and left her sitting while he brought her champagne. But he looked at her the whole time. Looked at _her_, not at the bright green sigil burning on her forehead, or the jewelry she wore that glowed under the moonlight with the uncanny aura of magic, to which the average Terran was reportedly unaccustomed.)_

_("But I'm not the average Terran," he replied, when she mentioned her appreciation to him. "I have magic of my own. All we shitennou do." He pulled back the cuff of his jacket slightly, shaking his wrist at the same time, until something slid out – a hand-twisted wristlet made of five strips of leather, each a different color, and glowing just as Jupiter's bracelet glowed.)_

_("That's wonderful," Makoto said, admiring the workmanship of the wristlet. To the unmagical eye it may have appeared unremarkable, but she could see the complex braiding of forces it contained. It was every bit as advanced as some of the pieces she wore. And unlike the heirlooms she wore, it was new. He had likely made it himself.)_

_("Did you think we lacked magic?" he asked.)_

_("No, we knew – you yourselves told us – that the Golden Crystal had been reborn, and thus magic had returned to your people," Jupiter said. "But we also knew that your Crystal had been missing for many generations. Without it, how did you maintain your magical disciplines? Amulet-making is no straightforward affair.")_

_("Perhaps the difference lies in our thinking," he suggested.)_

_("How so?")_

_("To you, having had the Silver Crystal constantly for so many generations, magic is an ancient thing, steeped in centuries of tradition. For us, it is something new and exciting. Without knowing what is possible, we may then do the impossible.")_

Straightening, he offered the mop to Makoto.

She reached out, but not for the mop. "It's you," she breathed.

Makoto's hand landed on his.

_(Makoto found herself looking at the wristlet he wore more closely. Amulet-making was hardly her strong suit – Mercury was the one to excel in the detail-oriented discipline – but as a senshi, Jupiter was expected to be conversant with most forms of magic. What she saw here was unlike anything she'd ever encountered.)_

_("The impossible…" The thought intrigued her. Impulsively she reached forward, not with her physical hand but with the barest touch of her power, seeking to understand – )_

"No!"

Makoto reeled back, ears ringing, before she realized that she hadn't been the one to shout. That had been the man, the stranger who was no stranger, who was now staring at her as if she were some kind of dangerous wild creature who was about to attack him.

_(Darkness – unfamiliar and terrifying, for never since the day he had first laid eyes on Endymion, the night the stars had begun to sing, had he ever truly been in darkness)_

_(Tendrils snaking out of the darkness, made of the darkness, reaching out and touching him, wrapping themselves around every part of him they could reach until he was coated in darkness, and he opened his mouth to scream but the darkness poured down his throat and choked him)_

"What was that?" she asked him, gasping.

The man was shaking. "Whatever you're doing to me, you and your friends, make it stop!"

"My friends?"

"From the train station!"

"What train station? What _was_that?" Makoto's hand had gone numb where it had touched his; she cradled it instinctively, and the numbness crept up towards her elbow. "What I saw – that was from you – when was that?"

"You saw that?" He took a step backwards, and the frightened look on his face grew. "How did you put that in my head?"

"How did _I _– " the sheer absurdity of that statement struck her, and without thinking Makoto propped both hands on her hips and gave him her most incredulous look. "Nephrite, _you're _the one who's psychic, not me! You _know _my magic is all offensive!"

The man's jaw dropped, and at that same moment the door to the gym swung open again. Makoto winced at the mere thought of someone else having overheard what she'd just said. Both of them just stood there, frozen, until the customer had passed back into the locker room and out of earshot. Then Makoto dropped her hands to her sides and shook her head at herself.

"Don't say it," she sighed. "One of these days my temper really _is _going to get me into trouble. And what kind of a reunion is this, anyway? Untold millennia and I'm snapping at you. Forgive me?"

He ignored this. "Your magic is – offensive?"

"Of course it is," she said, patiently. "Remember?"

"And I'm – psychic? Of course I'm psychic," he said to himself, in tones of dawning understanding. "How could I _forget _– aah!" He cried out suddenly, putting his hands to his temples.

"Nephrite?" She rushed to him, worried, but he threw up a hand to stop her. Makoto hesitated, torn between wanting to catch him – he looked as if he might keel over any minute – and wanting to respect his wishes. "What is it?"

"Something's wrong," he said. "I feel – " His gaze snapped up to hers, and for a moment something crackled to life between them. "Jupiter," he whispered.

"Yes, it's me," she said, heart leaping.

The moment vanished as soon as it had come. The man standing before her was wild-eyed and afraid. "Stay away from me," the man stammered.

"What are you saying?"

"I don't know who you are or what you're trying to do to me, but I don't want any part of it," he said, voice gaining strength as he backed towards the door. "I'm sorry I came in here – but please – stay away from me!"

"Nephrite – "

"That's not my name!" He wrenched the door open. She leapt towards him, but he was fast – as fast as she was, though he probably didn't know how or why – and in a flash he was gone.

Makoto ran out onto the sidewalk anyway, even though she knew it was useless. In seconds she was drenched, futilely holding her hand up over her eyes to keep the water out of them and peering in every direction with every sense she had. Part of her wanted to duck into an alley to transform and give chase, but the sensible part of her brain knew it was useless. He hadn't just run away quickly. He had literally vanished in a literal flash. Exactly the way she had seen Nephrite do a dozen times before.

She wanted to scream in frustration. But the streets were starting to fill up, dawn breaking in the east, and the last thing she needed was to draw even more attention to herself. Already she was attracting odd looks. Makoto retreated back inside the gym, grabbing a towel to scrub at her dripping hair and plucking distastefully at her wet shirt. Well, she had a stack of t-shirts in the back, all branded with the gym's name. She'd go get one in a second.

The phone rang. If Makoto had been thinking she wouldn't have answered it – she was _not _in the mood to list off the gym's opening hours or give directions from the nearest train station – but autopilot took over and before she knew it the phone was at her ear. "Moshi moshi, Kino's Gym," she said grudgingly.

"Makoto-chan?"

"Usagi!" Dropping the towel, Makoto clutched the receiver with both hands. "Oh thank goodness you called, you'll never believe what just happened – "

"Then that makes all of us," Usagi said with unwonted seriousness. "Can you get away for a while? I'm at Ami's… I think you'd better come over."


	5. Chapter 4

_(The first time he saw her, he was struck momentarily senseless. It was not the curve of her cheek or the form of her body, but the sparkle in her eyes, the lightness of her step, that caught him from across a crowded ballroom. Leen, his eldest sister, had smiled and moved just like that. To the young child, Leen had been the epitome of all that was beautiful and graceful in the world. Leen had married and moved far away before Nephrite had left home. In his memory, she was forever frozen in time as a young woman.)_

_(He sought an introduction. A dance. A short conversation over two glasses of wine.)_

_(He learned she was a princess, the only daughter among the twelve children of the King of Jupiter. For the first time, his title meant something more, carried a higher value, than an excuse that allowed him to do his duty for Endymion. His title meant he could approach her.)_

_(They had all been given lessons in how to flatter and please and court the ladies of the Golden Palace. First they had practiced on their instructors, then on women of the palace guard, expressly invited for the purpose and not shy of giving feedback. Eventually the shitennou had been encouraged to recommend themselves to the young women of King Eltosian's court. Nephrite had proven himself well enough at it, and he heard later that a few fathers had made inquiries about his position and holdings. But the nobility were still unsure about how to treat the four young men plucked from relative obscurity and deposited abruptly in their midst. Nothing ever came of it.)_

_(Princess Jupiter was not like those women. What he saw in her was a reflection of the boy he had once been: simple, unpretending, wholehearted. He did not attempt to flatter or woo her.)_

_(He gave her flowers, as the young men of his village did with their sweethearts. Living ones with roots and buds complete. He helped her plant them in the gardens of Luna Prime. He took her to see storms over the oceans of Earth when the courts were not in session. Mostly they talked, about anything and everything. He told her as soon as he knew he was in love with her.)_

The world slammed back into existence with the suddenness of a nightmare. Nobuo stumbled and fell to his knees. One flailing arm caught the edge of his small table, and he went tumbling, ending up sprawled on his side on the linoleum of his modest kitchenette.

Home. He was home, in his apartment in Tokyo. He'd wanted to be here. The most simple, primal of impulses – _get away_– fused with the instinct to seek comfort. And then the odd tingling feeling had rushed up through his veins and the world had turned grey, twisted around him, and then he'd been – here.

For a moment Nobuo attempted to convince himself that he'd walked home. That he was having some kind of blackout or something. That he simply didn't remember the mundane act of leaving the gym, walking through the rainy streets, climbing the stairs to his apartment…

_("Nephrite, you're the one who's psychic, not me! You know my magic is all offensive!")_

_There's no such thing as magic, _Nobuo tried to think.

He blinked, and another scene formed behind his eyelids.

_(The amulet-teacher was old, and used a cane to walk, but her eyes snapped like High General Adain's at sword-practice, and her hands were sure as she crafted. She wove metal as Nephrite's mother had once woven cloth, and her fingers pressed magic into the resulting amulets as surely as sister Leen had pressed thumb-patterns into the dough of buns and pies. Over and over the teacher had demonstrated, while sitting across from her Nephrite made his own first clumsy attempts.)_

_("As a beginner, shape and material will influence your work," she had said, watching him twist thread in a simple braid. "Ultimately, anything can be enchanted, but you may always find it easier to work with a particular medium to accomplish a particular task. That's no great ill, so long as you remember that, at need, anything can be an amulet. Anything.")_

_("Yes, teacher.")_

_("Have you thought about what you wish to attempt for your first serious working?")_

_(He had, indeed. He'd spent many nights thinking about it, and he'd finally decided. "Something for my new family," Nephrite said. "Something for the bonds we have to each other.")_

Nobuo gagged, almost choking on the feeling of wrongness, of nausea. This was wrong. He shouldn't be thinking these things. He shouldn't be feeling this way.

But he'd seen. In the image, he'd seen –

Grimly determined, Nobuo gathered himself up and went out of the kitchen, limping slightly. He hadn't brought much when he'd come to Tokyo, leaving most of his childhood belongings with his parents, but one small box had come with him. Nobuo took it down now from the top shelf of the closet, and set it gently down on the table.

Most of its contents were mundane. The letter notifying him that he'd passed the entrance examination for university – his mother had been so proud. A science award he'd won in the sixth grade. A small sheaf of photographs spanning multiple years, everything from his first school picture to his university graduation snapshot.

And at the bottom –

Nobuo picked it up gently. It wasn't much. A bracelet, really, though he'd always been hesitant to use that word. Just a simple circle of braided leather. Five strips of leather. He'd gotten it – where? He couldn't remember. Could never remember. His mother had asked once. Nobuo had said – a school trip. It had been made by a local artisan. Nobuo had liked it.

Something fizzed in his veins when he picked it up. The same something that he had felt when he'd left the gym. As he'd felt when that girl had looked at him with grass-green eyes and called him by a name that wasn't his. It drove out the nausea and the sense of wrongness. There was only the memory –

_(the sparkle in her eyes, the lightness of her step, the lightning flash that was her smile)_

And something else. A presence – no. Four presences. Without thinking, Nobuo turned towards the kitchenette. No one was in the kitchenette. But in that direction – If Nobuo walked that way long enough, far enough, he would find them. Whoever… _they_… were.

Perhaps one of them was the girl with the lightning-kissed smile.

Nobuo tensed, waiting for the feeling of wrongness to return. It didn't. It had gone away as soon as he'd touched the leather bracelet, and hadn't returned. Nobuo looked down at it. With sudden decision, he tied it around his wrist. It felt right there.

Then he oriented himself on the ghostly sense of presence, remembered to pick up his umbrella this time, and set off.

* * *

"Once Ami got into the data repositories, I just massaged the data a little bit," Zen was explaining as Makoto accepted tea from a subdued Usagi and settled herself on the sofa, where a seats had considerately been left for her next to Mamoru and the empty spot Usagi was soon to reclaim. Kanji and Minako were across the room, squeezed into Ami's one-and-a-half-person-sized armchair. They were both doing their best imitation of three-quarters of a person to make the tight fit work, and Minako didn't seem to mind having her legs dangle off the edge and needing to be held in careful balance by a strong pair of arms. Rei and Jade were on the floor. Ami alone seemed to be too wired to sit, and kept popping in and out of her modest kitchenette to pour people more tea or offer them various snacks. Makoto, herself no stranger to stress baking, didn't have the heart to tell her that food wasn't going to make this any better.

Instead she asked, "How sure are you?"

"Pretty sure," Zen said. "I recognized him instantly."

"Recognized like, he had the same physical features?" Mamoru's voice was gentle. "I understand how much we all want to find Nephrite, but we were sixteen then, and lived very different lives. I'm not sure how much a physical resemblance can be our guide."

Zen shook his head. "I don't just mean a physical resemblance. It was just like when I met Kanji. There was a _knowing_. You can feel it in your gut." He looked to Kanji. "Tell them."

"For me it was more like someone walked over my grave," Kanji said, "but it was certainly unmistakable. And had very little to do with physical features."

"Though those do match fairly well as well," Ami said, pulling out a printout of the best image they'd been able to find online.

"Ohhh…!" Makoto all but snatched the photo out of her hands, drawing several surprised looks for uncharacteristic behavior, but paying attention to none. "It's him!"

One end of Kanji's mouth quirked down, which was his version of a full frown. "As the prince was just saying, judging too much from a photo – "

"No, no, you don't understand." Makoto sagged back into the couch, almost boneless with relief. She'd had a twenty-minute metro ride with two train changes and a five-minute walk to berate herself for not getting Nephrite's current name before he'd run away. Or where he'd lived. Or _anything_, in short, that might let her find him again. The best plan Makoto had been able to come up with in that time was to throw herself at Ami's feet, apologize for never getting those security cameras installed at the gym, and beg Ami to hack into every ATM and red-light camera for a four-block radius to get a decent picture of Nephrite. And _then _work her image-search-fu to find a name. Makoto hadn't even dared to dream that Ami might be three steps ahead of her.

Most of the room's occupants seemed not to know what to make of the magnitude of Makoto's relief, but Usagi was perking up noticeably. "Mako-chan, did something else happen?"

"He was in the gym this morning! This exact man!"

Usagi bounced out of her chair and came around to peep around Makoto. "This morning?" She was nodding. "_After _you and Minako called me," she said knowledgeably.

"What does a phone call…" Kunzite began, clearly mystified.

Makoto waved her hands frantically. "Nothing!" she said, simultaneously shooting Minako a look that said, _you'd better not tell. _Minako winked back and held a finger to her lips, which just made Kunzite transfer his mystified look from Makoto to his girlfriend.

"Did he recognize you?" Usagi demanded.

Makoto nodded, one finger tracing the outline of his face in the picture. "Yes. Or – well – at first? He came in and he looked at me and I knew him – and he knew me, too. He called me _Jupiter_. But then…" she trailed off, remembering the look on his face as he'd screamed.

"Then what?"

"Something went… wrong."

"Let me guess," Zen said. "He told you that you were out of your mind and ran out like his pants were on fire."

"He did run pretty fast," Makoto admitted. Then her eyes narrowed. "And how would you know that?"

Zen and Ami exchanged guilty looks. "We may have tried to approach him yesterday," she admitted. "We figured out what train he was likely to take home."

"And you didn't _tell me?!_" she shrieked, giving Ami a look of deepest betrayal.

"It was my idea," Zen defended Ami. "I wanted to be sure it was really him. Up until I looked him in the eye, all we had was a picture of a guy who sort of looked like Nephrite."

Kanji held out his hand for the picture. Makoto gave it up, albeit reluctantly. "He's not in condition," Kanji said disapprovingly. "No muscle."

"Nephrite wasn't a warrior before he became a shitennou," Jade said softly.

"Neither were you."

"No, but my people were horse tamers and nomads. Twelve hours in the saddle every day will get you into shape whether you like it or not. Nephrite's people were villagers."

"_Were_," Mamoru stressed. "It's hardly a useful predictor. _I _was a prince, but I certainly wasn't born with a crown on my head in this life."

"You were born with the Golden Crystal, though," Kanji said. "Kino-san, he'll be needing a membership to your gym."

"It's on the house," Makoto said fervently.

"The issue isn't whether or not he gets a gym membership," Rei said flatly. "The issue is whether or not he _wants _one. Which, judging by what you've all said, isn't a guarantee."

The silence that followed was daunted. Makoto swallowed, throttling the urge to say something unkind to Rei about raining on others' parades when one was about to get _engaged_. Instead she asked Zen and Ami, "What's his name?"

"Ishikawa Nobuo," Zen answered. "He works for one of the major accounting and appraisal firms in Tokyo. They do a lot of work for the government, actually – Tenzen Corp. Kanji, know anything?"

The other man thought for a moment, gazing vaguely ceilingward. "Sounds familiar. I can look into it." He glanced back at the photo, then shook his head. "I haven't seen him around work before."

"Neither have I," Zen said. "But finding him isn't the problem."

Makoto raised an eyebrow, and Ami had the grace to look sheepish. "Yes, I hacked the corporate servers. We have his home address."

"But we found him twice already," Jade said. "He ran away."

"So did they," Minako pointed out, gesturing to Kanji and Zen.

"Because we were afraid," Kanji said.

"It sounds like Nephrite's afraid, too."

"I don't know," Ami said, perplexed. "I wouldn't have said _afraid_. He was more… weirded out. No more than anyone would be if two perfect strangers walked up to him on the subway and claimed to be old friends. It was like he genuinely didn't know us."

"But that's not how Makoto described it," Minako said. "She said Nephrite called her _Jupiter_."

"I used the crystal again last night," Usagi said.

Suddenly the entire attention of the room was on her. "You did?" Mamoru asked.

She nodded. "There was some concern that Nephrite might have been… well…" Usagi trailed off. Her eyes made a mute appeal to Makoto.

"It was me," Makoto sighed. "I was afraid that he'd died or something."

"Like in a youma attack?" Rei sounded skeptical.

"Like hit by a bus," Makoto said. "So I thought…"

Minako raised a sheepish hand. "It was kind of my idea," she admitted. "I thought, well, if that's all it is, a quick wish on the Silver Crystal would sort that out."

"And it worked!" Usagi said. "I made my wish last night – it must have been after you saw him, Ami and Zen, but then this morning he remembered! Right, Makoto?"

Now the gazes were on Makoto, and she faltered. "He did, but…" The memory of the recognition dying out of Nephrite's eyes, being replaced by fear, made her shudder. "A moment later it was like he didn't recognize me. He was afraid, but not of me. He was afraid of something else."

It fell to Mamoru to ask what they were all thinking. "But what?"

In the silence that followed this question, a knock sounded at the door. Makoto just about jumped out of her skin, narrowly avoiding spilling her tea, and she wasn't the only one. Rei _did_spill her tea. Minako frowned disapprovingly, and Makoto foresaw a series of exercises on surprise attacks in their future, but that wasn't the point. The point was –

The knocking came again.

It was Ami's apartment, but it somehow seemed perfectly natural that Usagi was the one to rise and move towards the door. Mamoru followed a half-step behind her as if pulled by a string. Venus and Kunzite were on their feet bare seconds later. The rest of them leapt to various belated forms of readiness. Ami, at least, had never stopped standing.

Kunzite stepped around Usagi and put his hand flat on the door. It might have looked as if Kunzite were trying to keep the door closed, but Makoto knew better. Kunzite was sensing what lay beyond. Everyone waited, and were rewarded with the rare look of surprise that crossed his features.

"It's Nephrite," Kunzite said.

"Then we welcome him in," Serenity said firmly. Kunzite dropped his hand and bowed.

Endymion opened the door.

On the other side, Nobuo was standing, hand still raised to knock. He looked startled at the array of people assembled in Ami's tiny apartment, and for a moment hesitated. Makoto wanted to lunge forward and grab him, stop him from running away again. She couldn't move. Her feet were rooted to the floor.

Visibly Nephrite – Nobuo – gathered his courage. His gaze flickered from Endymion to Serenity, to Venus and Kunzite, and lingered on Jupiter before returning to the Prince.

"I think I need your help," he said.


	6. Chapter 5

"Come in," Usagi said. She was definitely Usagi now, not Serenity, and as the magical pressure leeched from the air, Nephrite seemed to relax somewhat. Makoto could only sympathize with him – the princess of the moon had an overwhelming presence, even for she, who had been raised alongside Serenity from her youth and whose magic ultimately sprang from the same pool. Nephrite's magic was from an entirely different source, and he was by no means in control of it. Now that Makoto was looking, she could see his once-familiar green light flickering around him like lightning in a cloud during a storm.

"Thank you," said Nephrite – no – what had Ami said his name was now? Nobuo.

But – she blinked. As Nobuo came in and toed off his shoes respectfully, she looked at his right wrist. There was a single point where his aura was steady.

Memory struck her. That ball in Atalantia, the capital of Terra in those days.

_("I have magic of my own.")_

"You're wearing it," Makoto said before she thought.

Nobuo froze. Everyone else looked at her in confusion, then, naturally, at Nephrite. Nobuo pairs of eyes squinted in a familiar way – bringing up magical vision without fully transforming. They all focused on the same point on Nobuo's right wrist.

He could see it, too. He pulled his sleeve back and shook his hand – the same gesture he'd used a lifetime ago, showing her the new possibilities that an open-minded approach to magic could bring.

"Oh," Kunzite said involuntarily.

"You recognize this?" Nobuo held it up. Then his eyes went unfocused, and the magical pressure in the room spiked suddenly. "Of course you do," he said, and it was definitely Nephrite speaking now. "You were there when I made it."

"I was," Kunzite said. "We all were."

"I made it for – " He blinked. "For us," Nobuo finished uncertainly.

"Sit down before you fall down," Endymion said firmly, steering him towards the couch. Makoto had never made it away _from _the couch – standing up and reaching for her henshin wand had been as much as she'd had time for – which meant that, when Nobuo collapsed onto the couch gratefully, Makoto found herself staring down at him.

And he was looking up at her. "Won't you sit as well?" he asked tentatively.

How could Makoto say no to that? "You used to say – "

"You gave me a crick in my neck."

"Yes."

He smiled suddenly. "But I liked it."

The silence stretched. Makoto tried desperately to find something to say – something that wasn't _do you remember enough for me to kiss you now? – _and was saved from the embarrassment of him saying _no _by Usagi clapping her hands. "Everyone stand down," she said sternly. "This isn't a parade, and there's no threat."

There was some grumbling, but when the Moon Princess spoke in that voice more or less everyone listened. Introductions were made as senshi and shitennou drifted back towards their seats. Jade jumped up again when he found out the hard way that Rei had spilled her tea. Then there was a sudden rush of focused movement while Zen grabbed towels, someone found Nobuo an extra cup, and Ami brought out the guest crackers. By the time it settled Makoto found herself somewhat pressed up against Nobuo on the couch, neither Usagi nor Mamoru having apparently found it necessary to give up their seats to accommodate the new arrival. Makoto certainly wasn't complaining, and from the small looks Nobuo kept giving her when he thought she wasn't looking, neither was Nobuo. Makoto sipped her tea and felt suddenly warm all the way down to her toes.

When at last the bustle died down, Nobuo said ruefully to Ami and Zen, "We meet again."

Ami looked sheepish. "Yes, well…"

"You came to us," Zen said to Nobuo. "We were looking for you – as I'm sure you've figured out – but the first two times we found you, you ran away. Yet just now, you came to us. Why?"

Nobuo suddenly looked a lot less relaxed, but he swallowed hard and told them. "I started having these – these flashes. Like I was remembering dreams, except they were a lot more detailed than dreams."

"We've all had those," Makoto said softly.

He turned to her. "You have? How did you handle the sickness?"

"Sickness?" Makoto shook her head. "What sickness?"

"When I have those flashes, it's awful. Dizziness, nausea, and this – this oily feeling – " he shuddered. "Sometimes I can taste it."

Kunzite leaned forward, intent. "Like it's covering you," he said. "Like you're going to drown in it."

Nobuo nodded. He _looked _sick, too. Pale and clammy. Makoto's hands twitched with the desire to feel his forehead.

"Are you feeling it now?"

"No," Nobuo said slowly. "I stopped feeling it as soon as I put this on." He tapped the wristlet. "But before, it was bad enough that I'd… it felt like I'd do anything to make it go away."

"Including stop thinking about your memories?"

"Is that what those are? Memories?"

"From a previous life."

Nobuo's gaze turned abstract, inward. "They don't act like memories. I can't call them when I want them."

"That's not unusual," Makoto said, jumping at the chance to reassure. "It was like that for all of us at first. It still is, for new memories. They come when they want. Eventually, you'll be able to consciously recall memories you've accessed before. And sometimes the crystal…" She trailed off, looking sheepishly at Usagi. "I mean…"

"If the crystal were going to do something, why didn't it do it the first few times?" Jade said practically.

"What crystal?" Nobuo asked.

"Oh! Well, it's… er…" Usagi stumbled to a verbal halt. "Okay, maybe we should back up and start from the beginning."

Nobuo held up his hands. "No, please. I may not remember all that much, but I know that if you start from the beginning we'll be here all day." He looked rueful. "Is the crystal magic?"

"Yes," Usagi admitted.

"Okay. I can work with that for now."

"You're taking this awfully well," Zen said.

Nobuo grimaced. "I'm having flashes of what you say are memories that make me want to throw up, except when I put on this magic bracelet the nausea goes away. I don't know about taking it _well_, but there's enough empirical evidence that I'm not dismissing it out of hand."

"Speaking of the bracelet," Mamoru said. "I'm curious to know how you got it. None of the rest of us have anything from our previous lives."

"What about that crystal Chiba-san – " he nodded at Usagi – "mentioned?"

Mamoru blinked. "Okay, touché, we have the crystals."

"There's more than one?"

"Two."

"And we have our weapons," Jadeite pointed out.

"_And _our uniforms," Venus said. "Though those only come out when we're transformed – "

"When we're using magic," Ami clarified.

"All of those things we just named – the crystals, our weapons, even our uniforms – _are _magical," Usagi said.

"To be even more specific," Zoicite said slowly, "they're ordinary items that were magically bound _to us._"

"They're amulets," Nephrite said. "Don't you remember learning that?"

Everyone's focus swung back to Nobuo. "No," Zen said slowly. "Do you?"

"They weren't supposed to be," Nephrite said, haltingly. "They were just ordinary uniforms to start with. But as we learned more about our magic, we enchanted them."

"We did the same thing!" Makoto nodded in support of Nobuo, though in defense of his obvious befuddlement, she tried to moderate her excitement. "It was one of the first things we were taught in senshi training. We enchanted our uniforms to be armor, and then our weapons, so we could hide them away but always pull them out when we needed. Then later we learned how to _make _weapons out of magic."

"_We _did it by accident," Zoicite said.

"We did?" That was Nobuo and Jade, in stereo.

"Yes, we – you don't remember?" They shook their heads. "When we got our first uniforms, Kunzite was so proud of his, he didn't take it off for a week."

"Ew," Minako said, eyeing her boyfriend warily.

He raised his hands. "In my defense, I was eight years old."

Zoicite kept talking. "Kunzite was always messing with it, too. You took off all that decoration they'd put on it – remember, it used to have that fake braiding, and those epaulets? You thought those were getting in your way, you took them off. And the shoulder padding you pulled right out, and then Jadeite had to teach you how to sew the seams back closed."

"Because you'd never sewn a day in your life!" Jade said, laughing in recollection. "I remember how surprised I was!"

"_You _know how to sew?" Rei looked surprised.

Jadeite grinned at her. "Nomads and horse-trainers, remember? I sewed tack. Saddles, bridles – tents, too."

"Back then," Zoicite said, "our magic was newly awakened, and leaking out all over the place. Kunzite enchanted his uniform completely by accident. No one even knew he'd done it until he slipped in practice a week later and should have taken a sword through the shoulder – "

"Except the point just slid right off," Kunzite said. His right hand crept up to his left shoulder. "Even though all I was wearing was cloth."

"Amulets," Nephrite said. "Anyone with magic can make one by accident, just by loving something enough. It took King Eltosian years to find someone who could teach us to do it on purpose, with control. And when he had, I made this." He held up his wrist. "That's how I found this apartment. I followed this here."

"Because you made it for us," Endymion said softly. "One strand for each of us, to bind us together. I remember."

"Yes," Nephrite said. He blinked, and then with a slight pop of pressure equalizing, he was Nobuo again. "When I met you in your gym," he said to Makoto, "I had a vision – a memory. I saw us meeting. I was wearing this. And that was when I knew that I wasn't just going crazy. Because I still had it."

Rei said, "What happens when you take it off?"

Nobuo shivered. "I haven't tried since I pulled it out of the box in my closet, but I imagine the nausea and everything will come back."

"But it wasn't just physical, was it?" The way Rei regarded Nobuo was eerily similar to the way Ami or Mamoru peered at someone they think might be sick. "You didn't just feel ill when you had flashes of memory; from what I've heard, you actively rejected the memories. Right now you're sitting with us having a perfectly calm conversation, but you ran away from Ami and Zen before, and from Makoto, too."

"That's… a good point," Mamoru said. He looked at Nobuo. "Tell us what you experience when you remember something."

He was more Mamoru than Endymion just then, but there was still an unmistakable note of command in his voice, and Nobuo responded to it. "Dizziness, at first. Vertigo. If I stop trying to think about the memory, it goes away."

"And if you keep thinking?"

"Nausea, next. Then darkness. Not like – not normal darkness. Not the sun going down or turning out a light. Darkness as a physical thing. Darkness you can reach out and touch…"

"And then?" Rei demanded, cutting Nobuo off. Jadeite, leaning on her shoulder, was looking peaked himself; Kunzite was sitting perfectly still, in a way Makoto had only before seen when he was about to go into battle. Zoicite, usually the least demonstrative of the group, was holding tightly to Ami's hand. Rei repeated: "What do you feel last?"

"Fear," Nobuo whispered. "Disorientation. Like I'm losing my grip on myself."

"And so you run away."

Nobuo shook himself free of the memory. "Wouldn't you?"

"Not just physically," Rei said again. Her gaze was almost hypnotic. Nobuo looked at her; their eyes locked. "Mentally. You run away from the memories, from being who you truly are. Don't you?"

"Yes," Nobuo whispered.

"And now?"

"Now…"

"What do you remember now?"

Nobuo looked away. First he looked down at the bracelet on his wrist. Then he looked up, to the side, at Makoto. She smiled at him hopefully, and he smiled back, but it was a stranger smiling at her. Someone she'd never met.

A cute someone, though. And an interesting someone. Someone who went for walks at four in the morning, who apologized so politely when they ducked into gyms to get out of the rain. A stable someone, Ami's research had shown, with a steady job and a good degree. Not to mention a gentle smile. Definitely someone an unattached Makoto would be interested in getting to know. The problem was, Makoto didn't really consider herself unattached…

"Not enough," Nobuo said at last.

Rei nodded slowly. "I think I may be able to help with that."

* * *

Nobuo knelt on the floor of Mizuno's kitchen. The linoleum should have been killing his knees, even with the cushions Devine had put down, but he was still. Hino knelt opposite him. Between them, in Mizuno's best steel mixing bowl, a small fire burned. It had no fuel. Nor had there been a match. Hino had lit it with an arrow made of flames. The Nobuo of yesterday would have thrown up, or fled the apartment, or probably both. The Nobuo of today, who dimly remembered seeing Lady Jupiter conjure lightning to light the torches in the gardens where they had strolled, knelt patiently and kept his gaze on the flames as directed.

Hino was kneeling opposite, chanting in a low voice while her fingers flashed. Nobuo blinked, and the fire seemed to surround her, dripping like jewels from her ears, her neck, her wrists. Lady Mars had often worn jewels made of flame. He knew this; he remembered the consternation among the Terran nobility when they had first seen it, the way some of them had drawn back and feared to come too near. Even those like Lady Jupiter, who had worn more conventional gems, had nearly all still borne _some_visible sign of magic. How had King Eltosian still been so surprised that his people had turned on him so violently?

_We made so many mistakes in those early days_, he thought without thinking. _But would the Lunars have ever respected us, if we had asked them to fit themselves within our limits? _

_Let yourself drift, _Hino – Lady Mars – had directed him, as they had knelt opposite the fire she had lit. _Let your memories take you where they will. If the flame wills, they will follow the old paths, and we will find what we seek._

What we seek. What _they _sought. Everyone else here wanted Nobuo to remember that life. To become that person. What did Nobuo want?

The girl with the lightning-kissed smile. Kino Makoto. _She reminds me of my sister_. He blinked. Ishikawa Nobuo had no sister. But there it was, indelibly in his conception of Lady Jupiter. The man he had been had loved Lady Jupiter. He knew that as certainly as he knew anything. And the man he was now had looked at her behind the counter of that gym, when he'd stumbled in out of the rain, and wanted to know her better.

_("Your world is so beautiful. So much greenery and vegetation. I wonder how you can stand to see it harmed by war.")_

_("It does not please me," Nephrite admitted, "but a rebel victory would please me less.")_

_(Jupiter had seemed embarrassed. "No doubt you think me a foolish warrior, to be worrying about flowers instead of victory.")_

_("I think you a kind warrior," he had said, "who has a care for the consequences of what you do. Would that more were like you.")_

_(She had peeked at him from beneath green-streaked bangs. "See that you win this war," she had told him. "There will always be greenery on the other planets. There is not another you.")_

The fire was bright in his eyes. When had it gotten so big? It had started out as a small flame, easily contained by Mizuno's mixing bowl. Now it seemed nearly to reach the ceiling. But no one else seemed worried, and the smoke alarm was strangely silent.

How much of the fire was real, and how much of it burned in his memory?

_(Nephrite walked through the throne room, past the antechamber, and down the less-ornate hall leading to the administrative wings of the palace. There Endymion sat behind an enormous desk piled high with paper. The prince himself was almost invisible, only his shock of raven hair peeking above one of the many stacks. Nephrite rounded the edge of the desk to see Endymion slumped down, chin resting on one propped-up hand, staring listlessly at the field of white. Zoicite was by the fireplace, stoking it higher, trying to take the winter chill from the air.)_

_("Your highness," Nephrite said unsteadily. "I – I need to – ")_

_"Sit down before you fall down," Endymion said hastily, seeing his shitennou almost sway. "Are you all right? Are you hurt?")_

_("No," Nephrite said as the prince grabbed his arm to steady him. Zoicite shoved a chair into his knees and Nephrite sat down gracelessly. "I'm well – I'm physically unharmed, your Highness. But I was searching the stars – ")_

_("All right. Nephrite, whatever it is, we'll take care of it," Endymion soothed, pressing his own wine into the shaking shitennou's hands. "Just take a deep breath, and when you're ready, tell me what you saw that's got you so rattled.")_

_(Nephrite looked down at his hands. The wine slopped almost over the edge of the goblet, with the way they trembled. "The rebels," he faltered.)_

_("The war is going well," Zoicite said. "Kunzite has pushed them back across the river Dentheo, and cut two of their supply lines.")_

_("They have no defense against magic," Endymion says in satisfaction. "They are learning why we sought the ancient ways.")_

_("They have discovered ancient ways of their own," Nephrite says hoarsely. "They have summoned one of the old demons, to give them magic with which to stand against us. They have summoned Metallia.")_

"Metallia," Nobuo said softly. "I remember the name and a chill goes down my spine. Who was she?"

"One of the ancient demons that were sealed away in the Earth's core during the formation of the solar system," Usagi said, equally quiet. "The legends are sketchy, but I believe that they were opposed by the powers of the joint crystals. The Golden Crystal remained on Earth to guard them, while the Silver Crystal went to the moon in order to spread the light of civilization."

"Seems like a bad draw for the Golden Crystal," Nobuo said.

There's an awkward silence. "In retrospect," Usagi admitted. "Splitting the crystals up, sealing Earth off from the rest of the universe, it was a mistake. It cut the Terrans off from the knowledge of how to deal with the threat, and meant the rest of us were blind to its growth."

"And blind to the value of those left behind," Makoto said softly. Usagi bowed her head in acknowledgement.

"But even the rebels must have known that summoning a demon would ultimately destroy the very Earth they sought to rule," Nobuo said. "Why? What could have made the so desperate?"

"Magic," Kunzite said. "The rebels lacked it. They had everything else an army needs to succeed, but as long as we had magic and they didn't, we could hold out against them. Magic could make the palace gardens yield crops after they cut our supply lines. It could let us travel between the Earth and the Moon and seek aid from Queen Selene. It could let one man create an illusion that would scatter a thousand. Magic wasn't enough to let us defeat them, but it could keep dominion of Earth forever out of their reach. They needed to counter it."

"Their leader, Beryl, had been a lady in my father's court," Endymion said bitterly. "Father was obsessed with digging up the old legends. She probably learned how to summon Metallia while she was still at the capital in Atalantia, years before she ever started a rebellion. So when she realized that she couldn't overcome our magical advantage with traditional tactics…"

Silence again. Hino hadn't moved, hadn't participated in the discussion. She remained kneeling, eyes closed, fingers flashing, chanting quietly. The fire between them burned improbably on.

"Metallia," Nobuo said, deliberately. The chill slid again down his spine, and he chased it, letting himself fall into memory.

_("Has there been any progress?")_

_("Some, Queen Beryl. They fight. But their magic cannot last forever.")_

_("All things have an end." Nephrite pried his eyes open, in time to see Beryl's terrifying smile. Her teeth had been filed to a point, and they were blacker than the shadows that flicker here in this dark place. "Except Metallia.")_

_(Nephrite closed his eyes again. Beryl was right. Nephrite's magic came from the Earth, but it was sustained and nurtured by his own body. Already it began to run low with the effort of resisting Beryl. Without food, without rest, without meditation, it would run out completely.)_

_("What do you want?" Nephrite croaked.)_

_("He speaks?" Beryl sounded displeased. "I see you haven't been trying as hard as you might to break him.")_

_(The lieutenant at her side cowered away in fear. "Mercy, my lady!")_

_(Nephrite could have laughed. There was no mercy here.)_

_(The sound of Beryl's steps echoed on the unforgiving stone. The closer she came to Nephrite, the thicker the darkness became. It reached out from her corrupted soul, seeking to sink its tendrils into Nephrite. He swallowed hard against the rising nausea.)_

_("You could serve me willingly," Beryl said to Nephrite. "You, in particular, I would prize. Won't you read the stars for me, little lord?")_

_(He swallowed. "Never.")_

_("Endymion said that once to me. 'Never'." Beryl reached out and touched a finger to Nephrite's forehead. "I don't like that word.")_

Nobuo gagged, clapping a hand to his mouth as he struggled against the urge to vomit. Dimly he could hear exclamations of alarm and consternation. A glass of water appeared in his vision, and he took it and drank half of it. Then a cool hand rested on the back of his neck. Kino Makoto. She took the water from his hands when they started to shake and gave him an encouraging smile.

"It's hard," Makoto said. "It was hard for all of us, but I think it's worst for you."

"I can do it," he told her. "I want to know."

She knelt down beside him and leaned against him. "We're with you," she whispered.

He closed his eyes.

_(The assault was worse this time. Through the fog of confusion Nephrite knew that Beryl was driving it herself. It came at him like a thousand knives, blades made of darkness itself. The darkness coated his skin, tried to sink in through his pores.)_

_(He fought against the urge to scream, but it overcame him. Opening his mouth was the worst mistake yet. The darkness poured down his throat, and then it was inside him, spreading its way through his veins in search of – )_

_(Nephrite fought for clarity, for the ability to think. His magic would give out soon; he knew it. Before it did he had to do something, something that would protect him even when his power had run dry. But what? What did Beryl want?)_

_(The questing tendrils reached deeper. Beryl started riffling through his memories. Looking for what, Nephrite didn't know – but he knew, he had been taught, that a door once open swung both ways. Without letting himself think about the consequences, he seized the tendril and followed it back into Beryl's mind.)_

_(The chaos there roiled, and Nephrite was disoriented almost immediately. He tried to impose some measure of order, through sheer force of will, but he was swept away by the raging torrents of Beryl's mind. He snatched at fragments of memory as he was pulled inexorably deeper: Beryl walking with Endymion in the palace gardens; kneeling before a summoning altar, blood dripping from her fingers; smiling in front of a mirror as a maid dressed her for a ball; reviewing her troops after a battle – )_

_(Nephrite clung to that particular memory, and it blossomed. Now he was there too, staring at the decimated ranks – Beryl had lost nearly the full ten percent from her fighting force, trying to take the crossroads city of Sjenaia. He tasted Beryl's frustration that they had been driven back again. He felt Metallia within her, pounding at her, demanding, an eternal headache. Being the host and avatar for Metallia gave Beryl some small magic of her own, but it wasn't like the Golden Crystal's gifts. The Golden Crystal was the wellspring of life: what it gave, it gave freely, and the act of giving was also one of creation. By granting magic to Endymion, to his shitennou, the Golden Crystal itself became stronger. With Metallia this order was reversed. Whatever Metallia gave to Beryl, she took _from _herself. Metallia was weakened when she strengthened others.)_

_(That was why Beryl wanted them – why _Metallia _wanted them. The shitennou were a source of magic that cost Metallia nothing. Ever renewed, they would strengthen Beryl's army in a way even the ancient demon could not.)_

_(The memory ended. Nephrite fought for control, but another memory began almost at once. A newer memory – fresher.)_

_(Beryl knelt at the altar of Metallia, but her attitude was not one of submission but of defiance. _Endymion's shitennou will not not break, _Beryl said to Metallia in frustration. _They resist every attempt, refuse every inducement. How can I capture their hearts?_)_

_(_We don't need their hearts, _Metallia said coolly. _We need only the seat of their power. Rip their hearts out by the roots, and fill up the empty space with one of my legion of pet demons. Then you'll have their magic, and their loyalty, too._)_

_(Nephrite fled back into his own body with a rush. If Beryl realized he'd ever left it, her job would have been already done. Her plan was sickening, but he had no time for that feeling. He had to bind himself into his body so thoroughly, so tightly, that nothing Beryl could do would root him out. Otherwise, she would murder his soul, and then a walking automaton that looked just like him – that wove magic and read the stars – would join her in her cause.)_

_(But how?)_

_(Beryl's fingers continued to rifle through Nephrite's memories. Out of one of them, a half-remembered voice whispered.)_

_(_Remember that, at need, anything can be an amulet. Anything._)_

_(Most of Nephrite's talismans had been stripped from him after his capture, but the soldiers hadn't recognized the wristlet he wore as being magical in nature. It was still there, five simple strands of leather. One for each of them, his brothers and his prince. And one for him.)_

_(Not a very large repository for a soul, but a safe one. If Nephrite could complete the binding in time.)_

_(Beryl's questing reached the end of his memories, and the world went black.)_


	7. Chapter 6

"We've never actually known," Endymion said wonderingly. "Why Beryl still had you four at her side when we fought her again in this life. Why the Silver Crystal couldn't call you back, after we thought we had killed you in her service. Nor how you were then able to reappear, but with no memories of working for her."

Nobuo made the mistake of trying to stand and almost fell over. Makoto caught him by the shoulders.

"Thank you," Nobuo said, warm brown eyes smiling up at Makoto. Lightning sizzled again, and she swallowed.

"You're welcome," she said, voice sounding as unsteady as his legs had been.

Jadeite was helping Mars to her feet on the other side of the now-empty mixing bowl. Nobuo looked at him and _knew _him. Not just as the mild-mannered American-raised diplomat who had been introduced to him an hour ago. Nobuo knew what Jadeite looked like after he'd lost at hand-to-hand, how he could ride circles around any of the rest of them, how he had fretted in secret over the progress of the negotiations with the Silver Alliance but shown a smooth and untroubled face to the rest of the world. Jadeite – his brother. How had Nobuo been afraid of knowing him? Kunzite, Zoicite – Endymion. Nobuo swallowed. He'd been so lonely growing up as an only child in this life, and he'd never even properly known why.

"Lady Mars – Rei," he corrected himself. After all of this time, he could take her at her word when she told him to use her given name. "Thank you. For helping me remember."

She smiled tiredly at him. "Don't mention it."

"You never fought for Beryl," Endymion said. He was looking around the room, looking at each of his shitennou with something approaching shock. "I knew you hadn't turned traitor willingly, but I thought…"

"We all thought," Kunzite said.

"That she'd broken us in the end?" Nephrite shook his head. "No. She simply murdered us, and kept our bodies and our magic around to do our bidding."

"Your souls must have been reborn with all of ours in this world," Serenity said. "And then after we defeated Metallia, when I wished for you back – no wonder it had no effect. You weren't dead."

"But we weren't ourselves, either," Zoicite pointed out. "I think your wish still did something, princess. I think it brought us back our memories."

Then the prince's gaze fell on Nobuo. "Everyone's except Nephrite's," he said.

"But they're back now," Nobuo said. "I remember. I remember everything."

"You remember it now," Endymion said. "Why didn't you remember it when Usagi made her wish?"

"He did," Mars said, at the same time as Nephrite said, "I did."

Endymion looked back between the two of them. "Then why – all this?"

Rei waved for him to continue, and everyone's gaze turned to Nephrite. "I started remembering at the same time as everyone else," he said. "The difference was that I fled my memories."

"Yes, but – why? They made you sick, but why?"

Nephrite held up his wrist. "Because of this." He saw the blank incomprehension on all of their faces and hurried to explain. "I had bound myself into this. It reincarnated with me, but I never realized its significance. Before the princess released our trapped power and memories, it had no effect on me. But once she did, and my memories tried to return, the very protections I had created to try to keep Beryl out ended up turning against me."

"So everything you described," Serenity said. "The dizziness, the nausea – you did it to yourself."

"I did." Nephrite sighed. "I thought I was defending myself. It didn't work."

"Don't be so quick to say that," Endymion said. "I never could put my finger on it, but there was always something wrong about 'you', the false you that was Beryl's puppet. You weren't as powerful as you should have been."

"Beryl's Dark General claimed to be able to scry the stars, as you could," Venus put in. "But somehow he never saw us coming in time to stop us. I – forgive me, Nephrite, I never knew much of your powers. I assumed that you were simply… inept."

Nephrite gave her an affronted look. "I am a seer of excellence," he declared.

"And that will be an excellent thing to have on our team," Venus assured him. "Mars' powers tend towards scrying the present; we have no true far-seer among us."

"Hmph," Nephrite said, somewhat mollified.

"Wait a moment." Mercury was frowning. "You enchanted the bracelet to protect yourself, correct?"

"I enchanted it to contain my magical essence," Nephrite said. "So that Beryl couldn't use it."

"Yes. And it sounds as if – based on what you've told us – you _did_ succeed in storing some of it. Beryl's puppet was weaker than he should have been, and the mechanism was still active when your memories and power tried to return."

"But it's all right now," Jupiter said. "Isn't it?"

"As long as he's wearing the bracelet, it seems to be," Mercury agreed. "All component parts are present; therefore he is whole. What happens if he takes it off?"

There's a silence. "Well, I won't take it off, then," Nephrite said.

"Setting aside mundane routine tasks like bathing…" Venus gave Kunzite a wry look, no doubt recalling the uniform worn for a week. "What if it comes off mid-battle? It's obviously magical, to anyone with the sight to see; an enemy might easily take it for a weapon or a weak spot, and target it accordingly. Then what?"

"You vomit and flee mid-battle," Kunzite said, in a tone that made it clear that he was both imagining this and disapproving of it.

"Okay, I agree that's not good," Nephrite said cautiously. "Do you have a suggestion for fixing it?"

"End the enchantment," Endymion said. "That would work, wouldn't it? His essence would return, and he'd be complete in his own skin again."

Nephrite regarded the amulet-bracelet with some trepidation. "I'm… not sure I can."

Mercury is studying the bracelet, too, with a curious squint that Nephrite now knew meant she was using more than her physical eyes. "It's very complex," she said. "It was enchanted once already, you've said, and then you rewrote the enchantment on the fly to stuff in as much of your soul as you could. Then it got sucked up by Queen Selene in her wish, shoved back down during your reincarnation, and battered around a couple more times by both Metallia and Serenity."

"Sorry," Serenity said faintly.

Nephrite shook his head. "You were trying to help. Anyway, it's more my doing than yours."

"You never did do things by halves," Jadeite said wryly.

"I agree that we've got to find some way to disentangle you from it, but without study…" Mercury sighed. "Normally this is where I would suggest you leave it with me for a few days."

"No," Nephrite said, swift and instinctive.

"Definitely not," Endymion echoed.

"Well," Jupiter said. "Does it have to come off of his wrist for you to study it, Ami?"

Mercury blinked. "What did you have in mind?"

"Are you sure you're comfortable?" Makoto asked for the dozenth time. "You don't need anything? Cup of tea?"

Nobuo's eyes crinkled adorably when he smiled. "No, thank you," he assured her.

Ami poked something. He twitched. Makoto twitched, too.

_"Just pretend I'm not here," Ami had said, sitting down at the small table with a set of tools both physical and magical. "The only part of you I need is your hand."_

Indeed, Nobuo's hand was stretched out across said table, holding as still as possible while Ami poked and pried and made notes and sounds like "_hmmm_" and "_fascinating_". But Nobuo's attention seemed to be entirely on Makoto. Makoto found it both thrilling and, paradoxically, intimidating. She didn't _know_ Nobuo.

_Well, this is your chance!_

She cast about for something to say, but ended up being saved by Nobuo himself. "So, have Lady Mars and Jadeite set a wedding date?" He corrected himself a moment later: "Hino-san and Devine-san."

"Hearing you call them that just sounds _weird_," Makoto said. "I know we all used to have to be on very formal terms, but it's different now. You can say _Rei_ and _Jade_."

"Maybe I'll start with _Makoto_," he suggested.

Makoto jumped to her feet. "I'll make you some tea!" she squeaked.

Beating a hasty retreat into her kitchen, Makoto wished she could also beat some sense into herself. How long had she been waiting for this? It was just still so weird. She was used to him calling her _Lady Jupiter._ She knew how to react to that. What a pity it wasn't the Silver Millennium after all.

No one else seemed to be having this problem. Jade had given Nobuo an enormous bear hug before leaving, clearly startling Nobuo, but that was Jade's American manners for you. "Now that you're here the wedding can go forward with no regrets," he'd said, beaming. "You'll be a groomsman, of course? Oh, yes, we're incorporating some American traditions – makes my parents happy. Well, my dad's been in the US so long he's practically forgotten he was ever born in Japan, and my mom's American, you know. Yeah, the hair and the eyes are from her. We actually have to go pick them up at Haneda – they're coming in to meet Rei's father – and then we've got a bunch of wedding planning – so we'll be in and out for a few days, but of course, if you need me, just call! Okay, sayonara!" And then he'd been gone, Rei bowing politely and trotting off, serene as always in the wake of Jade's one-man tsunami and with a smile playing on her lips that was no less fond for being small and private.

That had started a larger exodus. Mamoru had had to go take a shift at the hospital – Ami's shift, in fact, since she, as their undisputed expert in amulet magic, had had to stay behind and work with Nobuo. Minako had volunteered to hold down the front desk at the gym, and Kanji had gone with her, both as backup and because he had a class he was scheduled to teach. And Usagi had taken herself off with a wholly spurious excuse: it was obvious to Makoto, at least, that everyone was trying to give Makoto a chance to spend time with Nobuo. Which was, in theory, what she wanted as well.

So why was she hiding in the kitchen?

"Doing okay?" Zen asked. He was in the kitchen already, cooking something delicious-smelling for lunch. He added a dash more mirin, then covered the pot. "You seem a little freaked out."

"How did you handle this?" Makoto slumped against a cabinet. "Somehow I thought we'd just… pick up where we left off. But it's so different."

"Well, we're different," Zen said reasonably. "The world is different." He handed her two cups of tea. "Am I really the one you should be talking to right now?"

"Thanks a lot," Makoto said, half meaning it for the tea, half sarcastic for depriving her of the excuse to hide in the kitchen. He was right, though, so she carried the cups back out, set them on the table, and sat back down. "Douzo," she said, politeness reasserting itself.

"Thank you," Nobuo said.

Silence.

_Oh, the hell with it._ "Okay, the life and times of Kino Makoto," she said abruptly. "Born in Juuban – we all were, actually, I'm assuming you were too." He nodded. "I've lived in the city my whole life. My parents – when I was seven, they…" she shook her head. "They died," Makoto said. "Plane crash. Since then I've been on my own. Well, I mean, I had a guardian, but… my aunt lives all the way in Hokkaido. I didn't want to be so rural, and she didn't want to move to the city. There was plenty of money, the airline paid a huge settlement, so I just stayed here. For a while a neighbor looked after me, but eventually she moved away to be close to her married son. Then it was just me for a while. A long while."

"But not anymore," Nobuo said. "Now you have all these others."

Makoto felt the smile appear on her lips, unbidden. "I do," she said. _And maybe… I can have you? _"Well, I met Usagi in middle school, remembered my past life, and it all went from there, really. At first it felt like we were fighting non-stop, threats coming out of the woodwork… every year it was a question of which of us was going to have the broken limb or bruised kidney or whatever over school vacation."

"Was that the worst of it?" Nobuo looked like he already knew the answer to that. "A broken limb?"

Slowly Makoto shook her head. "There were a few times worse than that," she admitted.

"I'm sorry," he said. He reached out with his free hand, not quite halfway across the table, letting his hand sit there palm-up. Like an invitation.

Makoto took the invitation, surprised at her own daring as she put her hand in his. Someone she had barely met – someone she had known a lifetime ago. Who had left one night after a meeting on Terra and never come back…

"It happened to you too," Makoto whispered.

He nodded infinitesimally. She clung to his hand, memories clawing at her. "Anyway, things eased up around the time we were all graduating from high school," she said. "We were able to focus on things like university, careers."

"Did you always want to own a gym?"

"I always wanted to own _something_. When I was younger it was a flower shop. Then, for a while, I wanted to own a bakery. I actually almost went to culinary school instead of university. But with the demands of being a senshi…"

Nobuo was nodding in understanding. "It's a lot of training," he said. "I remember."

"So, a gym." Makoto smiled. "It had better do well – I used the last of the settlement money as start-up capital."

"Well, you've got one new customer at least." Nobuo gestured to himself with their joined hands. "What are the membership options?"

"Yours is free," Makoto said. "No charge for old friends."

"I'd argue with you," Nobuo said, "but I seem to remember you being one of the only people I'd ever met who could out-stubborn me."

That changed Makoto's smile into a full-face grin. "You loved it about me."

"So I did," Nobuo said softly.

Silence settled again. Ami turned Nobuo's hand over, the better to poke at a new part of the wristlet. Zen came out of the kitchen to collect the teacups. "Lunch in about half an hour," he said, dropping a kiss on Ami's bent head and vanishing without commenting on the pair holding hands on the kitchen table. Ami didn't even twitch, so absorbed was she in the problem before her.

"My story is much shorter," Nobuo said, when Zen was gone again and Makoto had had a chance to breathe. "I'm an only child. My parents live an hour or so outside the city, but you're right, I was born in Juuban – mother preferred an urban hospital. Went to university in the city, entered the company right after. Typical salaryman, I guess."

"Typical can be good," Makoto said.

"I always was," Nobuo said pensively. "Typical, I mean. Well, until the day that Endymion swooped in and carried me off to Atalantia. But even there – compared to the nobles of Eltosian's court, even to the other shitennou, I was the ordinary one."

"A common background is nothing to be ashamed of."

"That's not exactly what I mean. I – well. You're a magical lightning princess witch. I'm – "

"A seer and a warrior, chosen by the Golden Crystal to stand beside the prince of Terra," Makoto interrupted. "The man who resurrected an art thought to be lost on your planet. Who fought to the death to save his prince – who _did_ save his prince. You did better for Endymion than we ever did for Serenity."

"That was before," Nobuo said. "Now I'm – a salaryman."

"And I'm an orphan who runs a gym," Makoto said. "So what?"

"Does it really matter so little to you?" Nobuo's smile was wistful. Makoto's throat closed up, and she squeezed his hand in mute sympathy. This wasn't exactly new – Nephrite had been worried that his humble background would cause trouble among the Silver Court, should it chance so – but in their last lives, Nephrite had lived a decade among the Golden Court before he'd ever met Princess Jupiter. He'd had time to confront his feelings, grapple with them, and finally make peace with them. In this life, he'd had maybe ten hours.

"Truly," Makoto said, trying to make him see. "I don't even see what there _is_ to matter."

He took a deep breath. "Then – are you busy on Friday?"

"Friday?" It took Makoto a moment to even remember what day of the week today was. "Um, the gym's open pretty late, if you want to swing by…"

"Not exactly," Nobuo said. "What day does the gym close early? Say, early enough to have dinner?"

"Dinner – with you?"

"And no one else," Nobuo said, smiling slightly. "In fact, as a date."

"Oh!"

"Oh!" Ami exclaimed suddenly, throwing her tools down. "Of course!"

Nobuo looked at Makoto wryly. "This feels very familiar, somehow."

"Straight from the Silver Millennium," Makoto agreed. With the way all ten of them had been sneaking around trying to crowd into the same three hiding spots, it was really a surprise any of them had ever gotten _any_ alone time. That they had was a testament to mutual dedication and sheer bull-headedness. _Don't sneak down to Terra?_ Sure thing, Queen Selene…

"Don't you want to hear what I've learned?" Ami demanded.

"In a moment," Nobuo said. "There's something else I want to hear first."

Makoto smiled at him. "Sunday night," she said. "That's when the gym closes early. And I'd love to get dinner."

Nobuo grinned. "I'll have to come back to Tokyo early," he said, "but somehow I think my mother won't mind."

"Well, I'm glad you're happy," Ami said. "Because this?" She tapped the wristlet. "Is going to be a problem."

* * *

"So you can't undo the enchantment," Nobuo summarized.

Ami shook her head. "The magics have merged," she said. "Not just your original enchantment and later spell, but some of Metallia's magic has seeped into it, too. In fact, I suspect that touch of magic was partly responsible for why you didn't simply reabsorb the missing parts of yourself when you handled the wristlet before."

"Metallia's?" Nobuo stared at the braided cords in revulsion. His first impulse was to tear it off his wrist, but that would probably only make things worse.

"Can it be purified?" That was Makoto. "With the Crystals – "

"Oh, yes," Ami said, "but that would take the whole thing with it. We'd never get it back."

"What? How?"

"The Silver Crystal is the one that purifies. And it's Lunar in origin. It wouldn't be able to tell the difference between 'good' and 'bad' Terran magic. It would erase them all."

Now Nobuo was both repulsed _and_ horrified. "But that would mean – "

"You'd be permanently damaged," Ami said. "You'd never get back the parts of you you'd stored away."

"Okay, not doing that," Makoto said swiftly.

"Back up a second," Nobuo said. "What's the problem with the _Golden _Crystal? That's Terran."

Zen was squinting at the wristlet and frowning. "No," he said slowly. "I mean, yes, it is. But – okay, so the term 'purification' is kind of misleading. Basically, the Silver Crystal divides things into their most elemental components. Whereas the Golden Crystal unifies things."

"Endymion can heal with the Golden Crystal," Makoto said. "Is that why?"

"Essentially, yes. He's putting things back together."

"But in this case, isn't separating things out what we _want_? We want to separate out Metallia's magic from Nephrite's."

"You're thinking too large," Ami said. "The magic isn't the smallest possible unit. Each of those spells is made up of many disparate elements, put together to form the enchantment. The Silver Crystal wouldn't stop at dividing two kinds of magic. It would divide the magic itself, all the way down to its elemental components."

"So," Zen said. "We need to purify the taint, _without_ disturbing the original enchantments. Then Nephrite can undo those himself."

"The Crystals don't have that kind of finesse," Ami insisted. "They're blunt weapons, made to govern entire planets. They'd simply wipe out all of the enchantments together."

Zen said, "I was thinking of something a little more Terran."

* * *

"Welcome to Hikawa Jinja," Rei said formally, bowing them in past the torii. "And whatever you do, don't tell my father I'm here. He thinks I'm shopping for western-style wedding dresses with Jade's parents."

"Would I ever?" Makoto put her hand on her chest and gave Rei a deeply hurt look.

"You, no. Him?" She eyed Nobuo warily. "I realize you haven't had the chance to meet my father yet in this life, but trust me, anytime you catch yourself thinking 'can he really be that bad'? Well, he is."

"Understood," Nobuo said, putting his hands up in a conciliatory gesture.

"Then come on in." She beckoned them into the shrine proper, down the corridors normally reserved for the priests, and into the room of the Sacred Flame. As soon as she set foot inside she shivered. "Oh, yes, definitely Metallia," she said.

Nobuo was shivering, too. "I'd forgotten this," he said. "The way you can't shield this close to the Sacred Flame."

"It doesn't tolerate interference. It _definitely_ doesn't like demons."

"But if it disrupts shields, won't it affect Nephrite's enchantments?" Makoto wanted to know.

"It shouldn't," Rei said. "This is Terran magic at its core. I can use it because my magic is fire-based, so we have an understanding, even though I'm Martian in nature. Nephrite's magic _is_ Terran. The Sacred Flame shouldn't even recognize it as something separate from itself."

"So the only foreign element, so to speak, is Metallia's," Nephrite said.

"Well, that's the idea, anyway. If you wanted to wait while Ami ran some more analyses – "

"No," Nobuo said.

"Okay." Rei knelt. "Extend your hand."

Nobuo did so, kneeling opposite Rei. Makoto, standing still on the edges of the room with her back against the sliding screens, saw the flames leap and felt the temperature spike. Nobuo was holding his hand – his wrist – close enough to the flame that Makoto was surprised the heat was was no tame offshoot in a mixing bowl in Ami's apartment. This was the real thing, the living fire of Terra, and it did _not_ like what had been brought into its realm.

"There," Rei murmured. Her eyes slipped closed.

From one breath to the next, the air changed. It became heavy, like the pressure of a storm front rolling in. Even the air of the sacred fire appeared to dim. And where before it had burned cleanly, now a dark shadow began to rise from its flames. To the mundane eye it might have appeared to be smoke. To the magical eye –

"Metallia," Makoto breathed.

Neither Rei nor Nobuo seemed to hear her. Makoto rose slowly to her feet, fingering her wand, feeling the tickle of her lightning sword in the back of her mind waiting to be summoned. She knew the dangers of interrupting a ritual. But some rituals were better interrupted than completed. Which was this?

There was an unearthly shriek so loud it seemed to shake the shrine to its foundations. Makoto clapped her hands over her ears, only to realize that the shriek wasn't audible; it was resonating in her magical core, leaving her trembling like the great trees of Jupiter after a lightning storm. The shriek seemed to escalate. The flames leapt higher. The sigil of Mars was burning bright on her forehead; Makoto could feel her own coming to life as she reached for her magic to protect herself against Metallia's extinction burst. Nobuo glowed with a power of his own. As Makoto watched, the glow grew brighter, magic separating out from the Sacred Flame and flowing back into him where it belonged.

Rei formed shapes with her fingers, once, twice, three times, and shouted something even Makoto couldn't understand. There was a tug on her magic – not Metallia, but Rei, calling on Makoto to lend her her strength. Makoto gave it willingly.

The pressure grew greater, until Makoto's ears popped and her teeth wanted to grind together. The light dimmed, then grew suddenly brilliant, as the Sacred Flame leapt so high that it threatened to scorch the ceiling. Rei's eyes snapped open. "Nephrite!" she commanded.

Nobuo was already fumbling with the wristlet. The darkness in the room seemed to howl, rushing towards him, tendrils forming into fingers to claw at him. Makoto shouted and leapt forward. She didn't dare call on Jupiter's power, but it was within her, and the darkness faltered before it for one brief second. Nobuo tore the wristlet from his wrist and flung it into the heart of the Sacred Flame.

The oppressive feeling popped like a balloon in a hurricane. Makoto staggered back, then slumped back to her knees in sheer relief. The fire had returned to its usual size, and it gave off no more heat than a normal fire should.

"Is it gone?" Makoto croaked.

Rei knelt in prayer a moment longer, then sat back on her heels. "Gone," she said with finality.

"That really was Metallia," Nobuo said. He looked ashen. "I really did have a part of her with me all along."

Rei nodded. "She was already sinking tendrils into your soul when you tried to hide it away. You trapped some of her with you."

Nobuo shuddered. "I never noticed. How could I not notice?"

"It wasn't enough for her to exert any meaningful control," Rei said firmly. "Without your own magic, you had no way of knowing."

"I didn't do anything?" Nobuo rubbed at his wrist, where the amulet had lain.

"You mean, could she have influenced you to do anything, through the wristlet?" Nobuo nodded. "No," Rei repeated. "Her essence was as trapped as your magic."

"Another reason for you to reject it so consistently," Makoto said softly. "It was tainted. Of course you didn't want it."

"But it's gone now," Nobuo said.

"Gone," Rei affirmed. "Purified and gone."

"And you?" Makoto asked Nobuo. "How do you feel?"

Nobuo looked down at his hands, loosely clenched on his knees. "I think," he said slowly, "I feel like… myself."

Makoto scooted a little closer to him. "What does yourself feel like?"

He looked at her. His eyes were still the same beautiful brown that they had been a lifetime ago. They still crinkled at the corners in the same way. But the way Nobuo smiled at her was different – light and glad, free of worries from the future.

"Myself feels like I want to kiss you," he said.

Rei hastily got to her feet. "I think I'll just go check if Grandfather's woken from his nap," she said.

Nobuo laughed a little as the shoji screen slid shut behind Rei. "Have I offended her with my forwardness?"

"She's a tad traditional," Makoto admitted. "But it seems to work for her."

"What works for you?"

Makoto grinned. "I think a kiss would work just fine for me."

Nobuo leaned in. Or maybe Nephrite did. She leaned in, too. And when their lips met, it no longer mattered what names they were using.


	8. Epilogue

"And so," Kanji said, bringing the utterly innocuous anecdote to an end, "I couldn't be more happy for my good friend and his new wife. Congratulations to the Devines!"

"Congratulations," everyone chorused.

Kanji bowed to the assembled crowd and moved back to his seat. Zen leaned over. "You should have told the story about the time Jade tried to ride the High General's war-horse," he said.

"Not in this company," Kanji said, taking a sip of his sake. "Why didn't you tell it last night?"

"Ran out of time."

Makoto covered her own smile with her hand. Last night all the survivors of the Silver Millennium had gotten together for what Jade had called a 'roast' and Minako said was called a 'hen' party, or maybe a 'stag' party, or maybe both. It was a Western tradition, anyway. The closest friends got together the night before a wedding and threw a party. A chance to enjoy themselves in a way the occasionally stuffy, highly tradition-bound wedding might not afford. As Makoto looked around the room from where she knelt at the low tables, arranged in a u-shape with guests outside and served by traditionally garbed attendants moving through the center, she saw the appeal. Of course, most weddings were more modern. But anything Senator Hino was involved in… well, Rei had had to put her foot down pretty firmly to have anyone less than a City Official invited. And there had simply been no hope of wearing anything besides kimono. For this dinner, at least.

"We'll have another chance," Kanji said, his thoughts perhaps running along the same lines. "There's the American-style reception tomorrow, and I understand that that's considerably more relaxed."

"All anecdotes will be restricted to _this_ lifetime, please," Mamoru said, his pleasant expression completely at odds with the steel in his voice.

"At least until the after-party," Minako said with a wink.

The conversation was broken up then as the final course was brought around. Senator Hino started making a speech of his own, standing up from his favored position next to Rei and thanking everyone personally for attending. This gave Rei and Jade, in the places of honor, time to actually sneak a few bites. Rei hadn't eaten much, but she looked looked considerably more relaxed than Makoto had expected. Of course, Makoto's only experience with brides was in movies and on TV, and Rei wasn't the sort for drama. Rei wore traditional dress fairly often, too, and didn't look as if she were the least bit uncomfortable, either with the clothes or with the extended period of time spent kneeling. Makoto herself had had to slip out for a few 'bathroom breaks' to stretch her legs.

They looked happy, the new Devines. So happy. And Makoto was happy for Rei – fully, wholeheartedly, and without even the slightest reservation. It was so wonderful to be able to just be glad for her friend.

* * *

The next night found them all laughing over cocktails as Jade's father, at the microphone, told a story involving the five-year-old Jade, his first bicycle, and the neighbors' rose bushes.

"Well, it was that or ride into the mailbox!" Jade called from where he was sitting next to Rei at the head table.

"The mailbox didn't have thorns!" Jade's father said back, prompting another wave of laughter from the assembled crowd.

The speeches came to an end at last, the cake was cut, and then Rei stood up, collected her bouquet, and moved to the center of the parquet floor. Makoto was ready for this: Minako had coached them all extensively on Western-style wedding traditions and the way they differed in real life from their televised counterparts. The senshi of love was herself already in the center of the floor, organizing everyone around her. Makoto joined the crowd, sharing a conspiratorial smile with Ami. Minako may have _thought_ she had been the one schooling the other senshi on the subtleties of a bouquet toss, but this time her sisters were going to have her back. Out of the corner of her eye, Makoto could see Kanji getting into position. Rei cast a glance over her shoulder; Makoto nodded. Rei closed her eyes and tossed.

It was going a little to the left – Makoto darted forward and got Minako with a clever hip-check. Usagi blocked two other girls from lunging towards the spinning flowers, and Ami took Minako neatly out at the knees. They'd pay for that later – Minako would want to drill on that maneuver until she could avoid it – but for the moment it was a total success: Minako went down on her butt, and the bouquet landed neatly in her lap.

"Hey now," Minako began, as a collective groan of disappointment went up from the other single ladies. "I don't think that quite counts – wait – what – what are you – "

Her question had to be rhetorical. No one could really doubt what Kanji was doing on one knee holding a ring.

"But you can't," Minako said faintly, clutching the bouquet. "It's horribly rude to propose at someone else's wedding – Rei will be furious – "

"It's only rude if you don't have the bride and groom's permission!" Jade said, appearing next to Kanji grinning like an imp. "And if you couldn't tell by the way my wife pegged you with the bouquet – " he turned the million-watt grin on Rei. "You've got it."

"Rei?" Minako looked at her, too.

Rei was smiling, too. "I spent _hours_ practicing how to hit a target from behind with my eyes closed. Trust me, this has my approval."

"I – " Tears were beginning to well up in Minako's eyes. "Is this really happening?"

"Don't tell me you're saying no," Kanji teased gently.

"No!" Minako cried, then clapped her hand over her mouth. "I mean yes!" She tried to get up and almost slipped on the hem of her dress. Makoto and Ami each grabbed an arm and helped their leader to her feet. "I'm saying yes, I just – I never thought – "

"That was the entire point," Kanji said, getting to his feet and taking her hand. He leaned in, using the excuse of slipping the ring onto Minako's finger to lower his voice so that only Minako and the senshi standing nearest could hear. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to surprise a goddess of love?"

* * *

"You realize we're going to have to have a word with Minako," Makoto said to Ami a few months later, as the two of them sipped tea at the park near Ami's hospital. Ami was on a break, and Makoto had joined her, as she often did, taking advantage of the fact that the gym was closed in the middle of the day. Now Makoto tapped a printout significantly. Minako had sent them all pictures of the bouquet she'd chosen, and the number of winky faces her email had included had put Makoto on warning. "She's going to try to get one of us with the bouquet, if we don't tell her otherwise, and since you started dating Zen before I started dating Nobuo, she's likely to choose you."

"I'll tell her to hold off on both of us," Ami said peaceably. "Unless you want the bouquet yourself?"

"No… at least, not yet." Makoto looked down into her own teacup. "I mean, it's not that I have any doubts, exactly, it's just that… well, it's only been six months."

"You know I agree with you."

"You do?" Makoto looked back up, this time in surprise. "I actually wasn't sure."

"I prefer to take it slow," Ami said, which was certainly true of every other area of her life. "Besides. I saw what Usagi and Mamoru went through, throwing a wedding while Mamoru was in med school. If anything, residency is _more_ time-consuming. No, Zen and I have talked about it, and if nothing changes in our relationship, we're planning our engagement after my residency is done."

"Do you really think anything is going to change?"

Ami shrugged. "I don't expect it to," she said. "I don't _want_ it to. But the possibility is worth considering. One shouldn't make lifelong commitments without a proper evaluation period."

Makoto had to laugh. "If Minako were here, she'd say that went against all the principles of romance."

Ami grinned. "Practicality can be romantic."

"Practicality, research, data science…"

"Exactly!" Ami looked practically starry-eyed at the thought.

Makoto nodded. "And that's why you and Zen are such a perfect fit."

Ami's smile turned soft. "Yes," she said. "I think so, too."

* * *

"And I think that's it, Kino-san," Maeda finished. "Have a good evening."

"Have a good evening!" Makoto exchanged bows with Maeda, watching with a proprietary sense of pride as Kino's Gym's first ever employee (discounting Makoto herself) walked out the door at the end of her shift. For the first twelve months it had just been Makoto herself running the place, with the occasional pinch-hit from one of her friends when Makoto needed to duck out. But business had been growing fast, and it had already been getting hard to keep up with everything when Rei and Jade's wedding had approached. Faced with the desire to take off several evenings in a row to attend the various events, Makoto had caved and posted the job opening. Maeda was a university student majoring in sports medicine. Her flexible schedule and educational background made her a perfect fit. With the exception of events like Rei's wedding, Makoto mostly had Maeda come in during slow times, and let her study between clients at the front desk while Makoto worked on the endless paperwork in the back. With the planning for Minako and Kanji's wedding starting to ramp up, Makoto was daily ever more grateful to have the help.

Now the evening rush was picking up. Makoto greeted a steady stream of customers, grateful all over again for Maeda's efforts when the first stack of clean towels ran out and she was able to pull a second stack from the back that Maeda had washed and folded earlier this afternoon. Makoto shouldn't have to run the laundry again until _after_ the post-workday crowd had tapered off.

Makoto handed a fresh towel to Nezumi-san as she came in. The mousy-haired woman was still a regular client, and had inquired after Nobuo shortly after he had become a fixture at the gym. Makoto had taken great pleasure in getting to inform customers that Nobuo was her boyfriend. Not Minako's, not Rei's, not Ami's – _hers_. And a quick glance at the tallies on the whiteboard showed that Nobuo had a comfortable lead so far this week on customer requests. Some of that was novelty, as Makoto knew perfectly well – the regulars had stopped asking after the other shitennou, once they'd learned that they were in relationships – but it still gave her a thrill every time Nobuo grinned his shyly proud grin and took the bill at Crown Arcade.

The front door chimed again, and Nobuo himself walked in. "Good evening," he said, polite as always, except for the highly scandalous way he then leaned across the counter and kissed her.

"Good evening," she said back, flushed and grinning. One of the less regular customers chose that moment to come out of the gym proper and head back to the changing rooms. Their raised eyebrow spoke volumes, but the customer kept their face politely averted, and Makoto discovered she didn't care.

"So I was thinking," Nobuo said, pulling her attention back to him. "We've been going out fairly regularly on Sunday nights."

"Yes, that's true," Makoto agreed.

"I was wondering if you might want to change it up."

"To what?"

"Saturday night, two weekends from now."

"Oh?" Makoto was definitely intrigued. "What's happening Saturday night?" She frowned. "Aren't you usually visiting your parents then?" Nobuo spent most weekends out of town; it was less of a problem than it might have been in a more conventional relationship, since Makoto's weekends were usually dedicated to the gym anyway. Nobuo had started coming back early enough on Sundays to have dinner with Makoto before the gang met up at the Arcade. Honestly, that was all Makoto usually had time for on the weekends anyway.

"Usually," Nobuo agreed. "But two weekends from now, my parents are actually coming up to Tokyo. They haven't been in a while, and my mother felt like doing some sightseeing."

"Oh!" Makoto nodded in understanding. "So you'll be seeing them next Saturday? Wait…" Nobuo had been talking about moving their weekly date, but moving it to the middle of his parents' visit made no sense. Unless…

"You see," Nobuo said, taking her hand, "I've been telling them all about this woman I've met."

"You have?" Makoto looked down at where their hands were joined, then back up at him, breathless.

"I have," Nobuo said. "I've been telling them how she's so amazing – brilliant, and beautiful, and a hard worker, and so kind and gentle…"

"You haven't," Makoto protested. "I'm not…"

"And this amazing person," Nobuo went on, "I have told them, for some reason, likes _me_."

"Some reason," Makoto scoffed. "As if you weren't all those things and more, Nobuo."

"Be that as it may," Nobuo said. "I've been telling them all about you, and when they said they were coming up to Tokyo for the weekend, I thought…" He ducked his head a little, so he could look her in the eyes straight on even though she was slouched against the counter. "I'd very much like to introduce you to them."

Makoto swallowed. His _parents_? "We've never done this before," she whispered. Oh, they'd thought about it, the last time around. They'd spoken of what they would do once the alliance was concluded, how Nephrite would approach King Thor XIV, how Lady Jupiter would travel to Nephrite's home village and meet his mother and sisters. But those conversations had turned tragically quickly into "when the war is over" daydreams, and then finally into dust. They'd never put any of their budding plans into action.

"There's a lot we haven't done before," Nobuo said. And he was right, of course. However wide Princess Jupiter's horizons had been – however much living she'd crammed into her years as a scion of the Silver Alliance – still the fact remained that they had all died young. And the nine months she had known Nobuo in this life were already longer than Jupiter and Nephrite had had together.

This was all uncharted waters. There was no guide for this to be found in the past. This future was Makoto and Nobuo's to shape. And Makoto knew at once that one thing hadn't changed. All of those hopes and dreams they'd shared a lifetime ago – only their trappings had changed. She'd never show him the forests of Jupiter; he'd never take her to see the rolling fields and ore-rich mountains of his old lands in the west. But Nephrite had loved his family; Nobuo loved his. And she couldn't think of anything that would make her happier than to start a new phase in their lives together by finally getting to meet them.

"So what do you say?" Nobuo prompted. "Will you come have dinner?"

Makoto smiled brilliantly at him. "Yes," she said.

* * *

A/N: And with this, the fic and the series are complete! Thank you so much to everyone who read it, and a special shout-out to those who have been waiting so patiently for this series to finally reach its end. I'm so amazed that people still loved this 'verse after so long - it's been an honor to be your author on this journey! I hope the fic was worth the wait :)


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